School Network

Zoompz · August 31, 2016

So the my school has "given" me a old 320GB segate HDD, it was connected to a NTFS network and still have the remains of Windows 8.1 on it, I have installed Windows 7 over the top of it and deleted the Windows.old file that's on it, if I connect to a network will it connect to my old school network? Thanks for any help.

August 31, 2016

3 hours ago, Zoompz said:

So the my school has "given" me a old 320GB segate HDD, it was connected to a NTFS network and still have the remains of Windows 8.1 on it, I have installed Windows 7 over the top of it and deleted the Windows.old file that's on it, if I connect to a network will it connect to my old school network? Thanks for any help.

Extremely unlikely.

dantayy · August 31, 2016

1 minute ago, Zoompz said:

So the my school has "given" me a old 320GB segate HDD, it was connected to a NTFS network and still have the remains of Windows 8.1 on it, I have installed Windows 7 over the top of it and deleted the Windows.old file that's on it, if I connect to a network will it connect to my old school network? Thanks for any help.

There is no such thing as a "NTFS network", if you reinstalled windows it will not remember the old WiFi network settings

Oshino Shinobu · August 31, 2016

NTFS is just a file system. The Network has nothing to do with NTFS.

Even if you're within range of your school network, it will not connect as the drive is not responsible for connecting to or managing network connections. That is the responsibly of your NIC. As the drive is not responsible for networks, the network wouldn't recognise the drive as an existing system either, as your identity to the network is tied to your NIC.

dalekphalm · August 31, 2016

3 hours ago, Zoompz said:

So the my school has "given" me a old 320GB segate HDD, it was connected to a NTFS network and still have the remains of Windows 8.1 on it, I have installed Windows 7 over the top of it and deleted the Windows.old file that's on it, if I connect to a network will it connect to my old school network? Thanks for any help.

No, it will not.

However, I might recommend you doing a DBAN or zero-write nuke of the drive (basically formatting it multiple times and overwriting with random garbage data), simply to ensure that any school data is completely erased.

Frankly, it was ridiculously irresponsible of them to give you a HDD that still had a school Windows 8.1 installation on it. Yikes - can't imagine what kind of personal data they may have let out the door. Fortunately, you installed Windows 7 overtop, so likely the data is gone, but I would personally wipe it again anyway just to be safe.

You could also simply download CCleaner (or equivalent utility) and run the "clean free space" command. Basically it does the same thing as DBAN, but just over the free space of your HDD - this way, you don't lose any of your current files, nor do you need to reinstall Windows or anything else.