Laptop's hard disk

[sheep]

I got a 6 year old P3 Toshiba laptop. The screen is busted, the light bulb is blown and it's just a black screen now. But it is able to start up.

My question is, can i just buy a 2.5" hard disk casing, plug the hard disk in and format the HD? Or i need to format it first? There is a Windows ME installed in it.

If i do not format it first, i encase it and plug it into my Win XP, will it cause and problems? Cos i thinking of formatting it on my Desktop.

[redbeacon]

Yup, that's correct.

 

Encasing it and then plugging your 2.5" (USB) hard drive into your Windows XP equipped computer does not harm it. It functions like a typical drive with all the folders and files that you are used to seeing on your Toshiba notebook.

 

You can continue using the hard drive as per normal but take note that since Windows ME is installed on that drive, it had eaten up a fair amount of space already.

 

Of course, if you want to start anew, formatting the whole hard drive would be the last option.

[sheep]

Yah thats what i would like to do. format it cleanly. its from a trashed laptop anyway. i think got 4-6Gb only.. but still usable.

[redbeacon]

In this case, you can connect your portable hard drive to your XP computer and run the format utility from there to erase your hard disk