What steps do I need to take to use a hard drive from my old computer?

You can either put it in your computer (assuming it has a free hard drive bay) or buy an enclosure and use it as an external hard drive. To put it in your computer, open up the computer, find an empty bay, screw it in, and then plug it in. To use as an external drive, slip it in the enclosure and connect it via USB or eSATA. Then just format it Windows Explorer in either FAT32 or NTSC by right clicking on drive and clicking format.

Just set the jumpers as required by you motherboard for the 2nd drive, some use the drive select line and others read the jumpers to id the slave drive, boot to the bios and verify that it has been identified.Formatting your drive for Windows Vista STEP 1: Open Computer Management like this: Right-click on the Computer icon. Click Manage. If you’re prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. STEP 2: In the pane on the left, under Storage, click Disk Management. STEP 3: Right-click the drive that you want to format—be sure it’s the correct drive—then click Format STEP 4: To format with the default settings, in the Format dialog box, click OK, and then click OK again. Formatting your drive for Windows XP STEP 1: Open Disk Management like this: Right-click on the My Computer icon. Click Manage. In the pane on the left, under Storage, click Disk Management. STEP 2: Right-click on the drive you want to format. Be sure it’s the correct drive. STEP 3: If you want, you can type a name for the drive in the Volume Label box. This is an optional step. STEP 4: Click the file system that you want to use in the File System box. You can also change the disk allocation unit size, specify whether you want to perform a quick format, or enable file and folder compression on NTFS volumes. Note: Before changing the default allocation unit size please refer to Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 314878. STEP 5: Click OK. When you’re prompted to format the drive, click OK again.

How to Add a Second Hard Drive to Your Computer http://forum.sangtao24.com/general-technology/add-second-hard-drive-your-computer-t573.html

take out harddrive Reformat it. Presto.