Can I add a hard drive to windows home server without formatting it?

SBD · 11 Dec 2010 at 21:58

Hi everyone hope this is a quick yes or no

I have a 1TB hard drive with a lot of media on it around 400GB can I just pull the drive out of my current PC and add it to my server without having to format it?

Cheers and Merry Xmas all

Xez · 11 Dec 2010 at 22:02

SBD · 11 Dec 2010 at 22:22

Cheers good to know

Qu3 · 11 Dec 2010 at 23:53

Erm.. Not if you want to add it to the pool.. Windows will format it..

Destination · 12 Dec 2010 at 10:08

Indeed, if you add it to the pool you will lose all existing data.

Xez · 12 Dec 2010 at 12:08

Qu3 said:
Erm.. Not if you want to add it to the pool.. Windows will format it..

Ok Tom, looks like I need to use WHS then...

SBD · 12 Dec 2010 at 17:49

Well I have back everything up onto my other drive which took over an hour

Now I just need to find out how to remove it from my PC without causing a boot problem, maybe formatting it in windows will help just don't want to chance it as it would leave me without the ability to boot into windows even though I won't be formatting the OS disk :confused:

Confused · 12 Dec 2010 at 18:45

Plug drive into WHS machine, but don't add it to the pool.

Move all files across to the shared folders, then add it to the pool.

Unless, of course, you've not got enough free space on the pool to move all the files to it, in which case, you'll need to back them up somewhere else.

But in your case, just unplug it from your PC, and if it boots - good, if it doesn't, plug it back in and post back and someone should be able to help you.

Qu3 · 12 Dec 2010 at 19:46

Xez said:
Ok Tom, looks like I need to use WHS then...

Indeed, one of the best things out of M$!