Computer Hard Drive

[Asher Schwartz]

Hi there! I recently took my 1 tb 5400rpm HDD out of my computer to install a 1tb SSD inside instead. I took the 1tb HDD and put it in an external enclosure. I was wondering if it was ok to format the whole hard drive and make it like new to be able to use it as a backup for my music? OR, should I not format it and just drag my music on to there without format so I can keep all the windows partitions and everything on it from windows

[typographie]

That's up to you. It should work fine as a second storage volume without formatting, so it's just a matter of whether or not there is stuff on there you want to save. If you just want to wipe out the drive and start fresh, backup what you need to backup and format it.

[Asher Schwartz]

12 minutes ago, typographie said:

That's up to you. It should work fine as a second storage volume without formatting, so it's just a matter of whether or not there is stuff on there you want to save. If you just want to wipe out the drive and start fresh, backup what you need to backup and format it.

So resetting it is fine and I dont need the windows partition on there? P.S. i dont need anything on there. If i do, I would transfer it to my pc and then put it back on the HDD

[typographie]

1 minute ago, Asher Schwartz said:

So resetting it is fine and I dont need the windows partition on there? P.S. i dont need anything on there. If i do, I would transfer it to my pc and then put it back on the HDD

I can't think of any reason you'd need to keep any of the Windows files on that drive unless you intended to boot from it again. But if you're unsure what you may or may not need later, you can just leave it as-is for now. It's really more an issue of organization and tidiness than functionality.

[Asher Schwartz]

1 minute ago, typographie said:

I can't think of any reason you'd need to keep any of the Windows files on that drive unless you intended to boot from it again. But if you're unsure what you may or may not need later, you can just leave it as-is for now. It's really more an issue of organization and tidiness than functionality.

ok

[Asher Schwartz]

If I am reformatting the whole thing to make it external, do I need the EFI partition or can I delete that?

[ProjectBox153]

3 hours ago, Asher Schwartz said:

If I am reformatting the whole thing to make it external, do I need the EFI partition or can I delete that?

If you aren't using it right now for Windows, then no.