Having 2 hard drives with separate operating systems?

[LukeMaBoy]

I have been using this SSD for a year now and I plan on putting the hard drive from my old PC into this one. The problem is the other hard drive still has its operating system on it. Will my PC boot into that OS or what? What I want to have happen is me boot into my SSD and use a program like CCleaner or something to reset the hard drive. Also is there any programs you would recommend for wiping the hard drive?

 

[Onus]

You will specify in the BIOS what the boot priority is; the SSD should still be the boot device.
If you don't need what is on it, just format the hard drive. I normally uncheck the Quick Format option. That could take a long time to complete, but is actually formatting the entire drive, not just wiping the VTOC.

 

[Calculagator]

You can set which hard drive will boot first in the BIOS menu. Usually, nothing needs to be changed. Stick the hard drive in and it will work as you desire. If you want to erase everything, just right click it from "My Computer" and select format. Pick NTFS and use default options. That will erase everything for it to be usable. If you want to really make sure things are unrecoverable, you will need a better utility, but for most purposes, that is not necessary.

 

[LukeMaBoy]

You can set which hard drive will boot first in the BIOS menu. Usually, nothing needs to be changed. Stick the hard drive in and it will work as you desire. If you want to erase everything, just right click it from "My Computer" and select format. Pick NTFS and use default options. That will erase everything for it to be usable. If you want to really make sure things are unrecoverable, you will need a better utility, but for most purposes, that is not necessary.

All I want is the hard drive to be like brand new, like i bought it from the store, what should I do for that?

 

[Onus]

Assuming there's nothing on it you want, after installing it, go into Disk Management, delete any partitions on it, recreate the partition(s) you want, and long-format them as NTFS.

 

[Calculagator]

Onus is right. Just format the thing. Personally, I think that long formatting is unnecessary. Fast formatting should not result in any performance problems for a normal HDD.

 

[Onus]

I prefer that just because since it's an older drive, that will find and mark bad areas (if any; and if there are a lot, suggest the drive might not be long for this world).