Question I need to format a disk in my secondary drive before using it.

[cougacopia]

I recently bought a new pc, it came with an SSD. I want to remove the SSD from my old laptop and connect it to the new pc as well as the one it has in it. When I connect the SSD from my laptop properly, it says that I need to format the disk before I can use it. Is there a driver I can install, or something that I can do to make this work? I have a lot of files on my old laptop SSD that I want to transfer to the new one, but the new one doesn't have enough storage, so I just want to use both simultaneously, but boot only off of one.

 

[gn842a]

There's no way to format the SSD from your old laptop without nuking the files on it.

If there isn't enough space on the new SSD, sounds to me like you should invest in a 500 gb to 1 TB HDD and put the files on it so you can nuke the old SSD by formatting it. Then transfer the files back to what is now a storage drive. 1 TB Western digital blue drives are found for $50 these days at the usual on line venues and Best Buy. They are pretty good, but if you want long term durability I think the red and black labels are made to last longer.

Of course you could take this opportunity to get an external case for the HDD and turn it into your backup storage.

No drivers are required BTW. Drive formatting instructions are all over the internet but the gist is Win X > Disk Management > select drive (you can't select C: drive) > right click > format . Reading your post I couldn't tell if you were asking how to format.

 

[Mr5oh]

Have you thought about other methods to transfer files? Using a network (LAN cable between the two PCs)? Booting temporarily into Linux to see if it will read the two hard drives, as it will read more file systems than Windows (Make sure "Turn on fast startup" option is off in Windows 10, otherwise you won't be able to cleanly access that drive).

 

[popatim]

WHAT is the old laptop please? Which OS?
PC can read other OS drives thru an app.

What make and model# is the older SSD? If its from a Windows laptop and the new Winndows PC can't read it then it may be an encrypted drive.