Help installing Hard drive please
400Gb will take a long time to format. Go and make yourself a cup of tea/read War and Peace/take a long holiday. 
I wouldn't bother putting your applications on the new drive, just us ethe old one for Windows and programs and the new one for data. You can't just copy programs over as things like registry settings and data storage will not be setup correctly. They would have to be installed properly.
I wouldn't bother putting your applications on the new drive, just us ethe old one for Windows and programs and the new one for data. You can't just copy programs over as things like registry settings and data storage will not be setup correctly. They would have to be installed properly.
Fantasticforum
Sorry we went off on a bit of a tangent for you there. I’ll try and explain as best I can and see if the fog clears for you.
With a blank drive a number of things have to happen before you can use it, first it has to be ‘initialised’ this is often done by the manufacture (as was yours) but can be done by Windows. Sometimes when you add a new drive it looks to the system like a CDROM and you get no black band to click on and set up your partitions, in that case you right click on the drive icon and the pop up window will give you the option to ‘initialise’ the drive (not applicable in your case so don’t worry).
Next you have to partition the drive either using a standalone partition manager or Windows’s own built in manager. Then you have to format the partitions. For the first time use you should use a Full Format of the partition(s), this puts down the initial FAT table (File Allocation Table), makes a copy and stores this just after the original and then does a full sector by sector scan of your hard disk (or partition) for errors and maps them to the error map stored on your drive (it should find none on a new drive as they should already be mapped but it’s better to be safe than sorry). You can use a Quick Format but I agree with God and Peter better to spend the time now than curse later (and I’ve been doing this from when drives were MFM and RLL and you had to set interleaving and stuff).
So what happens when you have data on your drive and you do a format? Well the format command first makes a copy of the FAT and stores this as a hidden file right at the very end of your hard disk (ever wondered why you can never use the final 8 meg on your hard disk) then it overwrites the initial FAT (it often ignores the second copy) and if you are using the Full Format it does a new bad sector scan of the hard disk (well the partition your formatting actually but that is splitting hairs). It leaves all the file data intact on your drive and suitable software can retrieve the files and data and even do an ‘Un-format’ of the entire partition. My very old copy of Norton Utilities could un-format a partition in no-time by just copying back the hidden file and bang all was good as new (users thought I was God in them days).
That is why when you recycle your old computer you should always run a ‘disk scrubber’ type application on the hard disk to completely destroy all data and files on the drive before parting with it.
I hope the fog is a little clearer now, regards, P.
Edit: even the spell checker in Word can't spell
Sorry we went off on a bit of a tangent for you there. I’ll try and explain as best I can and see if the fog clears for you.
With a blank drive a number of things have to happen before you can use it, first it has to be ‘initialised’ this is often done by the manufacture (as was yours) but can be done by Windows. Sometimes when you add a new drive it looks to the system like a CDROM and you get no black band to click on and set up your partitions, in that case you right click on the drive icon and the pop up window will give you the option to ‘initialise’ the drive (not applicable in your case so don’t worry).
Next you have to partition the drive either using a standalone partition manager or Windows’s own built in manager. Then you have to format the partitions. For the first time use you should use a Full Format of the partition(s), this puts down the initial FAT table (File Allocation Table), makes a copy and stores this just after the original and then does a full sector by sector scan of your hard disk (or partition) for errors and maps them to the error map stored on your drive (it should find none on a new drive as they should already be mapped but it’s better to be safe than sorry). You can use a Quick Format but I agree with God and Peter better to spend the time now than curse later (and I’ve been doing this from when drives were MFM and RLL and you had to set interleaving and stuff).
So what happens when you have data on your drive and you do a format? Well the format command first makes a copy of the FAT and stores this as a hidden file right at the very end of your hard disk (ever wondered why you can never use the final 8 meg on your hard disk) then it overwrites the initial FAT (it often ignores the second copy) and if you are using the Full Format it does a new bad sector scan of the hard disk (well the partition your formatting actually but that is splitting hairs). It leaves all the file data intact on your drive and suitable software can retrieve the files and data and even do an ‘Un-format’ of the entire partition. My very old copy of Norton Utilities could un-format a partition in no-time by just copying back the hidden file and bang all was good as new (users thought I was God in them days).
That is why when you recycle your old computer you should always run a ‘disk scrubber’ type application on the hard disk to completely destroy all data and files on the drive before parting with it.
I hope the fog is a little clearer now, regards, P.
Edit: even the spell checker in Word can't spell
