what is an unformated hard drive and can i add it to my notebook and then add xp?

Question

i was going to add a new 120gb HD to my note book, but the hard drives are sold unformatted what does this mean, and if i add it can i load xp and wll it format the new hard drive on its own when i add xp, if this works how do i transfer all my files from my current hard drive to the new

Answer 1

Yes, you can add it and the XP setup will take care of formatting it for you.

An unformatted drive is typically how new drives come from the manufacturer. Formatting is basically putting little markers througout the disk to tell the operating system where things are. (It's actually much more techincal than that.)

Transferring the files on a new laptop drive is a little tricky. First, you need to somehow make the old drive available to the computer. This can be done with either an external enclosure making it an external USB drive, or by installing it as a second drive in the laptop or another computer.

If it's a second drive or an external drive, you can then just drag and drop the files from the old drive onto the new one. If you install it onto another computer, you can have them networked and then copy the files.

Of course, you could also burd a cd/dvd with the data prior to removing the drive if you have a cd/dvd burner.

Answer 2

Unformatted means that there is no file system on the drive so the computer won't recognize it. That is how new hard drives come. Yes, Windows XP will automatically format a drive during the installation process however, you need to enter the setup menu (how to do this depends on your computer) and change the boot order to boot from the CD drive first. Be sure to select NTFS as the file system. You'll get a choice during the process.
BC

Answer 3

first make sure it's a notebook hdd...it'll be a 2.5" i believe

when you install XP it will ask if you want to format and you will have to

should give you 2 or 3 options (can't remember if XP includes one): Format NTFS, Quick Format NTFS, and Format FAT32...

Format NTFS is your best choice for that...then you should be all set!