0

I just recently bought a brand new laptop. The hardware was awesome, but the hard drive was...eh (320GB, not my cup of tea). So I ended up taking Jeff Atwood's suggestion and bought a hybrid hard drive (500GB, bare drive).

When I received it, I immediately took the old one out and put the new one in and reinstalled Windows 7. And to my amazement, it was one of the best upgrades I ever did! BUT one thing that still bothers me, I forgot to pre-format the drive....(due to over excitement haha) I'm usually good at playing it safe, and ensuring I take the extra steps for the health of my laptops.

So my question, is there any repercussions for not formatting a new hard drive and installing a new OS, short-term and long-term? Should I clone my newly installed OS (I say clone because I have already put most of my music, videos, and documents back on the new drive also), format the drive, and put the clone back on?

Thanks for any suggestions!

Community
  • 1
Adam
  • 1,853

3 Answers3

5

Windows have formatted your hard drive during installation, in NTFS, as it can't install on a non formatted hard drive. You'll be able to clone it without problem using any tools Like CloneZilla/SystemRescueCD/(* any other software or Live CD)

Best regards

Warnaud
  • 575
1

If the drive came pre-formatted to NTFS, then you don't need to do anything else.

The OS installation cleared the boot-loader, so security won't be a problem.

Am.
  • 1,746
0

When Windows 7 Installs it pretty much takes care of the formatting for you. Not like Windows XP whre you had to choose (fat, ntfs, or quick) depending on your preference. I wouldn't worry too much about. :)

Danbo

danbo
  • 666