Install Question

[bgphotoo]

This may be kind of a stupid question, but here it is anyway. My C drive just bit the dust. I have a 1TB drive that I was using to back up photos. My question is... if I install windows on that drive, will the files on the drive be bothered at all? I would think not as long as I don't format??

[JJ 3000]

will the files on the drive be bothered at all?

Yes.
They will be erased.
You will have to format to do an install.
format = erase
There is a way around this though. If the 1tb drive is split into different partitions you can install an operating system on a partition where there is no important data. Even if the 1TB drive is only one partition there are partition resizing programs that you can use to effectively shrink your partition. However, while usually pretty safe, these partition resizing programs can be dangerous and you may end up inadvertently erasing the data that you were trying to save in the first place.

What's wrong with the old hard drive?

[BC_Programmer]

if I install windows on that drive, will the files on the drive be bothered at all? I would think not as long as I don't format??

You are correct. Unless you format the drive during the selection phase you can easily install windows to a drive that already contains files.

It's obviously best to back them up first, but I've done it myself several times with no ill effects (of course, your mileage may vary).

[bgphotoo]

Thanks for the info. I thought I had that option BC, I just wasn't sure. I went ahead and partitioned the drive anyway. JJ, I had a NTLDR is Missing error the other day and after looking into it I realized the drive was not coming up at all. I'm gonna put it in a housing and see if I can salvage anything from it. Now I seem to be having a driver problem of some kind. when I boot up the screen goes black but I can hear it finish booting. If I boot in safe mode or low res mode everything is fine. I guess I have the wrong display driver or something.