New, second hand, hard drive... Having troubles

Jerochy · May 31, 2015

Hey guys,

So recently, I found a computer in the garbage that someone was throwing out for whatever reason (core duo quad core @2.4GHz, 2gb of ram, gtx 9800). Only problem is, it didn't have a hard drive.

I brought it home and tried to boot it up with a hard drive out of a little HP computer I had, but I was getting errors right after the "starting windows" screen which I pretty much expected. But, since I wasn't going to use that hard drive permanently, I wasn't worried and just put it back into my HP.

Luckily, I ran into someone on craigslist selling a 500gb SATA hard drive for $20 with cables to use it as an external also. When I brought it home and plugged it into my main computer (dell xps 8500), I saw that there were a ton of program files on it with windows folders. When I went into system32 and looked at the license, it said it had windows 7 ultimate. Knowing the hard drive might not use the OS again like it did with my HP hard drive, I downloaded linux-lite-2.4 64bit.

I just put together the computer today with the hard drive and just connected everything, and I get the same errors as I did with the HP hard drive. Also, when I went to do a factory restore, it turns out whoever had this hard drive before me had some passwords set ;_;. I am currently putting linux-lite on the hard drive from my xps 8500, but don't really know what to do afterwards.

Is there a way that I can still boot my computer with windows 7 ultimate without the original CD?
Is there a way to do a factory reset with out the password? (I texted the guy asking for it and I'm still waiting for a text back.)
If I just put linux on that hard drive, mash f12 at the start up screen and choose boot from hard drive, will it magically work?

Any input on my current situation would help a lot. Thanks guys, you're the best.

Jerochy · May 31, 2015

30 views and no reply's ;_;

LogicalDrm · June 1, 2015

Why not get gParted to USB, boot into it and format/repartition the SATA drive. That should clear any passwords set to it. After that you can install any OS to it, even using your main PC, just make sure which HDD you are installing to. After you remove drive, you just choose normal boot drive, no issues. And drive with clean OS should work just like that in other PC.