Using an old HD to transfer files

Ok here is the situation. I have alot of stuff on my current hd that I want to put on the HD of the system I am currently building. I have a third system that I want to use the HD out of to transfer files from my current HD to my new one. My question is what do I need to do to this third hd so I can just dump files from my current hd on it and put them on the new hd. Do I just fdisk and format it and run it as a slave in both systems?? I want to do this to avoid burning a bunch of disks with stuff I want to transfer.

Did this make any sense???

Thanks

Basically just get the drive that you want to transfer the files to and put it into you're system with the files on, set it as slave to you're current harrdive or put it on the other ide chanel. Transfer the files over to it then do the saem on the new system (set as slave)
If the drive isnt partitioned then you will ned to do so, if it is and it has enough space on it then dont bother formatting it, that would be a waste of time.

The old drive that I want to use to transfer the files has WinNT and a bunch of junk on it. I got it from a friend who got it from work. It is a small drive. Like only 2gig. Should I just go ahead and partition and format it??

And it may be a stupid question, but do I need to have an OS on it or will it just read as another drive w/o an OS. Like a optical or floppy drive would.

Sorry if these questions are dumb but I have never worked with multiple hard drives before.

Thanks

There not dumb questions everybody starts somewhere

It doesnt need an os if its just going to be a slave drive, it sounds like it will need formatting as its only 2GB and the os will be taking up a lot of that space. It will already be partitioned as it has the os already so just put it in you're comp format it and put the files you want on it.

Thanx Chris.

its easy to do. had to do it several times myself. just make sure that both of the boxes involved supports the same format. what i mean is, dont back up info from a winxp box in ntfs format, then try to put the data onto a win98 box, which will probably be running fat32.

Basically just get the drive that you want to transfer the files to and put it into you're system with the files on, set it as slave to you're current harrdive or put it on the other ide chanel. Transfer the files over to it then do the saem on the new system (set as slave)

Click to expand...

It doesnt need an os if its just going to be a slave drive, it sounds like it will need formatting as its only 2GB and the os will be taking up a lot of that space. It will already be partitioned as it has the os already so just put it in you're comp format it and put the files you want on it.

Click to expand...

just make sure that both of the boxes involved supports the same format. what i mean is, dont back up info from a winxp box in ntfs format, then try to put the data onto a win98 box, which will probably be running fat32.

Click to expand...

right on guys...... Just follow that and you'll be ok pal... oh btw- welcome to the forums!