Hi all,

Last week I installed the 15G hard drive from my old dead Gateway (Windows ME) as a secondary drive into the Dell (Windows NT) I'm currently using. I figured out how to do so by looking it up on the web, and everything went swimmingly. I recovered my lost documents and am now ready to remove that drive and install a 40G drive I have as the real secondary. My goal is to have the secondary drive serve as the home of my music files. Do I need to do anything before removing the 15G hard drive, or do I just unplug it and then follow the same process for installing a secondary drive with the 40G? Also, the 40G drive was initially set up to run Windows NT. The bit I can't seem to figure out is will I need to reformat this drive, and does Windows NT need to be reinstalled? Or can I just leave it as is and use the leftover space for my music? I'm simply not sure what I'm supposed to do after I have the thing installed.

Honestly, I'm not completely useless when it comes to doing this stuff, but I am a bit nervous about trying anything without knowing for sure that it's the proper thing to do, so I appreciate the help!

Hello. You have it down if you did it once. The file system on the drive will be either FAT or NTFS. You can determine the current system by right clicking the drive, choose properties and above the pie it will tell you the current system. Make it the same as your primary. You do that by right clicking the drive and about half way down you will see format. Be aware that if you format the drive your data will be wiped, so backup what you can't lose. { secondary drive} Don't format the primary. I don't have a system with NT, so I can't check my advice. However,if format is not in the right clik menu it will be in the system somewhere.

Just make sure the jumper is set properly on the hdd you are installing as a slave, boot the computer and see if you can explore the drive. You should be able to do so.

If you want to reclaim the space you can format the slave drive but be aware that will delete all data on it.