[zombeaner]

Here's the story. I have a Dell Dimension 4600 with an 80gb HD. Tiny. It was decent at the time I purchased the CPU. Recently my father-in-law's computer went belly up with viruses and rather than fix it, he opted to buy a new one. I took the old one and have the idea to use the main HD from their computer as storage for mine. It is a 250GB SATA drive. Now, I would like to know if I can connect this via 4 pin power and SATA data cable. Can I format the drive when it is connected to my motherboard without the viruses jumping drives? If the new drive runs Vista and the old drive has XP, will there be a problem on booting up? What is my best course of action?

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If you wanna play safe download the ISO image of DBAN http://www.dban.org/ download and burn it to a CD-R and boot from it then erase all data on your 250GB SATA HD.

Now your Hard drive will be clean of any previous data but will be unformatted, read this article on how to install an unformatted HD in Vista
http://www.brighthub...cles/22069.aspx

Hope that helps

[Alzeimer]

If you wanna play safe download the ISO image of DBAN http://www.dban.org/ download and burn it to a CD-R and boot from it then erase all data on your 250GB SATA HD.

Now your Hard drive will be clean of any previous data but will be unformatted, read this article on how to install an unformatted HD in Vista
http://www.brighthub...cles/22069.aspx

Hope that helps

[dsenette]

Now, I would like to know if I can connect this via 4 pin power and SATA data cable

assuming that your PSU has all the proper power connections that match the drive, yes

. Can I format the drive when it is connected to my motherboard without the viruses jumping drives?

maybe? it would be best (if possible) to format the drive when it's still in the old computer (just to be safe). in general it's MUCH safer to clean the thing before you connect it to a clean computer. if you can't do this, you could remove your current working hard drive from your computer, hook up just the infected one and run something like Darrik's Boot and Nuke (instructions to follow) to completely wipe the drive, then hook up your other drive back up and go to town. the only reason i suggest removing your current drive before doing this is to prevent you from accidentally nuking your good drive.

If the new drive runs Vista and the old drive has XP, will there be a problem on booting up?

shouldn't be

To completely erase all data on the drive(s) using Darik's Boot And Nuke (DBAN)

Download

Readme.txt

Bootable CD version (ISO)
OR
Bootable Floppy/USB Version (EXE - self extracting setup)

Use

Bootable CD

• Burn the DBAN ISO file to a CD.
  NOTE: Keep in mind that this is different than burning a file to a CD. If you do not know how to burn an ISO image, then download CDBurnerXP Pro and install it. Then go Here for instructions for burning the ISO image
• Reboot your PC with the DBAN CD in the CD-ROM drive.
  NOTE:Make sure the PC is set to run from the CD as the primary boot device. You do this by setting your PC to boot to the CD-ROM in BIOS (enter bios by pressing f1, f2 or del key during memory count up, then search for boot order, and set the CD as the first boot device)
• Once you have successfully booted to the DBAN disk, type
  

  Autonuke

• Once the process is completed you may run it again as many times as it takes for you to feel comfortable, but my experience shows that twice is plenty (unless you usually walk around your house in a tinfoil hat so that the government's spies cannot intrude into your thoughts and steal all of your secrets)

Bootable Floppy/USB

• Double click the DBAN EXE file that you just downloaded to execute it
• Choose the drive that you would like to install DBAN on (A: for a Floppy or whatever letter is assigned to your chosen USB device)
• Press Install
• Reboot your PC with the DBAN Floppy in the Floppy drive or your USB device attached to an open USB port.
  NOTE:Make sure the PC is set to run from the Floppy or USB device as the primary boot device. You do this by setting your PC to boot to the Floppy or USB device in BIOS (enter bios by pressing f1, f2 or del key during memory count up, then search for boot order, and set the Floppy or USB device as the first boot device)
• Once you have successfully booted to the DBAN disk, type
  

  Autonuke

• Once the process is completed you may run it again as many times as it takes for you to feel comfortable, but my experience shows that twice is plenty (unless you usually walk around your house in a tinfoil hat so that the government's spies cannot intrude into your thoughts and steal all of your secrets)

IMPORTANT: MAKE SURE TO LABEL YOUR DBAN DISK CLEARLY AS ACCIDENTAL USE WILL BE CATASTROPHIC!

.

[zombeaner]

OK, I kinda thought that I may need to disconnect the main drive first, I just wasn't sure. Does an OS need to be installed on the second drive if I want to use it only for storage? If I use DBAN on the second drive while it is the only one attached, what happens next without an OS installed? Would I just power down, reconnect the main drive, and reboot? Sorry if my questions seem simplistic, I'm kinda new to this and don't wanna ruin my computer in the process!

[dsenette]

Does an OS need to be installed on the second drive if I want to use it only for storage?

nope

If I use DBAN on the second drive while it is the only one attached, what happens next without an OS installed? Would I just power down, reconnect the main drive, and reboot?

yes

Sorry if my questions seem simplistic, I'm kinda new to this and don't wanna ruin my computer in the process!

everyone has to start somewhere right?

[zombeaner]

I ran DBAN and it seemed to work fine. I did that with the main drive unplugged and the new SATA drive plugged into the SATA 1 slot. Then I plugged the main drive back into SATA 1 and the new drive into SATA 2. When I rebooted, it only sees SATA 1, the main drive. Previously I had an IDE storage drive, but that was faulty and had hardware damage. I can't see the new drive under my device manager, where do I go to tell the computer to find that second drive?

[dsenette]

right click on "my computer" and choose manage, then choose disk manager. look through the list on the right. do you see an unformatted drive? should match the specs of the "new" drive. if so, right click on it and choose format

[zombeaner]

right click on "my computer" and choose manage, then choose disk manager. look through the list on the right. do you see an unformatted drive? should match the specs of the "new" drive. if so, right click on it and choose format

I did that, and all I see are my main drive and two smaller partitions.

[dsenette]

what's the make/model of the "new" drive?

[zombeaner]

what's the make/model of the "new" drive?

Grr, I knew that would be a question eventually. I'm away from my computer, I'll have to check when I get home.

[zombeaner]

Mainly what is confusing me is that when I plugged the new drive into the 1st SATA slot, the computer recognized it and that is how I was able to run DBAN, but it seems like the 2nd SATA slot on the board isn't recognizing it or isn't working. Is there a "switch" I need to flip to get that second SATA input to turn on?

[dsenette]

"shouldn't" be, but make sure that it's detecting in BIOS. if it's not you may have to look around in the bios settings...there may be a setting to tell it to detect the extra channels?

[zombeaner]

Hmm, looking around in BIOS may be tricky for me, what should I look for? How do I get to BIOS?

[dsenette]

to get into bios you press either f2 or del during boot (look around on the screen during boot, it'll have a message saying "press <something> to enter setup"

[zombeaner]

Once I get this thing detected, do I need to partition it if I only plan on using it for storage? Can I tell my "Documents" folder to point to the other drive, or do "My Documents" need to stay on the drive with Windows.