Help with HDD.

[JoshPanda]

So basically I am looking into buying a new PC (building myself) and I was wondering if it would be possible to reuse my HDD. Would I need to uninstall windows from it? And If so how? Or if not what would I need to do. Or can I not reuse the HDD. Also, I know that I will lose files, I will back them up so it's fine.

 

I hope someone can help me!

Many Thanks, Josh

[JoshPanda]

Oh forgot to mention that I will be installing windows on an SSD in the new pc.

[monjessenstein]

As long as you back up the files, you can format the drive when you hook it up to your new pc, and can then format it to get rid of the Windows files.

[knightslugger]

you can reuse the HDD. I would just format it completely AFTER windows is installed on the SSD.

[DeadlyTitan]

you can reuse an old drive as long as its working, however please note that HDD's are ticking time bombs, even the new ones and you never know when its going to go off, so yea as long as you backup then why not ?

[seagate_surfer]

Storage is perfectly reusable so long as it's healthy. You can run diagnostic software on the drive to check on it's health first, we have a free one called SeaTools. You've already mentioned a lot about what's important/how to go about it. Best plan of attack is back up your data to some other storage medium like an external drive/cloud, then disconnect the hard drive, boot with only SSD attached and either OS installation CD or bootable media installer using the Windows' Media Creation Tool, then after you've got your OS alive and kicking on the SSD, format the old hard drive.