Reformating SSD and HDD help

[AlmightyJoygasm]

Hi

Ive just purchased a second SSD for my build along with Windows 8.1 Pro. Im planning on installing 8.1 on the new SSD along with some applications, and then use my existing SSD purely for storing games downloaded from steam.

My current SSD has Windows 7 installed. Basically I want to wipe Windows 7 and all data from my existing SSD once I have my new SSD with Windows 8.1 up and running, but I'm not really sure of the best way to do this.

I also have several old HDD's which have Windows 7 and Vista installed. I'd like to wipe these too and use one of them in my build for storing files/music/photos.

Assume I have backed up any data I want to keep.

Any advice on wiping/reformatting would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards
AJ

 

[clutchc]

Wiping the old HDD can be done with something like Dban. But you can just reformat it in Win if it is going back in service for yourself. The SSD simply needs to be reformatted in Win also.

 

[Solandri]

Win 7 (and 8) installations tend to have one or two extra small partitions that hold boot files. You want to wipe those too so a simple reformat isn't enough.

Start -> right-click Computer -> Manage -> disk management

Find your old SSD and HDDs. Make absolutely sure you've got the right drive - you don't want to delete partitions on your boot drive. Delete all the partitions on the drive, create a new partition, and format it.

Leaving these small partitions usually doesn't hurt. But it can confuse your computer as to which drive is the boot drive, and you can end up with mysterious "device not bootable" errors. Speaking of which, remove all the drives except the one you want to use as your new boot drive when you reinstall Windows. If you have multiple drives in there when installing, you can get into a confusing mess where the bootstrap is on one drive while the OS is on another.

 

[clutchc]

+1^
Good point. Hadn't considered that issue.

 

[AlmightyJoygasm]

Thanks for the answers guys

AJ