New PC Build + old Hard Drive. Do I have to format?

[dexterity83]

Hi. I'm building my first gaming PC, and I was told that I would NOT have to lose all my data if I used an existing hard drive. Sadly, it seems that I might have to after all.

My old PC had two hard drives:

Primary: 1TB (has Windows 7 + some personal files)
Secondary: 3TB (has many many Steam games)

Plan A was to make the secondary hard drive of my old PC (3TB) the primary and only hard drive of my new PC. So I transferred everything I needed from the 1TB over to the 3TB and moved the 3TB over to the new PC setup. However, when I went to install Windows 8.1, it said that there was no available space on the 3TB hard drive (even though, in reality, there's still nearly 2TB of space left). It turns out that the hard drive wasn't the correct format, and that I would have re-hook it up to the 1TB machine in order to format it completely. I'm not entirely unwilling to lose all the Steam games on the 3TB hard drive. It's just that it would take forever to re-download them. I've already backed up all the savegames and put them on another computer, so they're safe.

Plan B was to have the same setup as last time: 1TB + 3TB. But when I went to upgrade Windows 7 to Windows 8.1 on the 1TB hard drive, it asked me to completely format my 1TB hard drive. This scared me a little. What would become of my 3TB hard drive after I formatted its little brother? Would the 3TB no longer be compatible next to it? Or would I have to format the 3TB one as well and lose absolutely everything from both hard drives?

Plan C was to install Windows 8.1 onto my secondary (3TB) hard drive using my old Windows 7 PC setup, but I have no idea what the ramifications would be being paired up with a 1TB hard drive that has Windows 7 on it. Plus, when I go to install the newly-Windows 8.1-ed hard drive into my new PC, it'll ask me to re-install Windows, right? Would it now be compatible but ask me to format the hard drive anyway? And would I even be able to re-install Windows 8.1, or is it a one-time-only thing? (I have the retail version of Windows 8.1, by the way)

Plan D was to buy a new (and hopefully larger) hard drive and start from scratch, and then just transfer everything over from my old PC. But I would like this to be a last resort. Also, can you even use a fresh-out-of-the-box hard drive on a new PC build?



My question: Is there a way to make the 3TB hard drive the primary hard drive without losing everything on it?

 

[digitaldoc]

Lots of options here.

To answer your question, the way to make the 3 TB a primary and keep the data is to set it up with a new partition, and install the OS to the new partition, leaving the existing data on the other partition. However, long term it will appear as 2 different hard drives in My Computer, even though it is one physical drive.

I would reformat the 1 TB hard drive, and install Windows onto it. Leave the 3 TB drive out of the system to keep that data safe. Then install the 3 TB.

The other option would be to get a new SSD, and install Windows to that. The good thing is that the SSD comes formatted and ready to go out of the box. Look at the Crucial MX100, and the system with an SSD will boot much faster, and not need to be defragmented.

http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX100-adapter-Internal-CT256MX100SSD1/dp/B00KFAGCWK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421724803&sr=8-1&keywords=crucial+mx100

 

[dexterity83]

So it seems like no matter what I do, the 3TB hard drive is always incompatible with the new PC. I created a 200GB NTFS partition, but the new PC couldn't even detect the new partition. When I was completely out of ideas, I formatted the entire 3TB hard drive. And then when I put it back in my new PC hoping to start fresh, it was STILL incompatible!

So I erased everything on my hard drive for nothing.

Any ideas at this point would be welcome.

 

[digitaldoc]

I would check that the 3 TB drive is still being recognized on another PC. If it is, reformat it, and make sure it is NTFS.