Install before or after windows?

[sinkoman]

I'm planning on getting a rig put together later on today, and I have a question.

I plan to run an sata drive for the windows install, games, and other performance things, and I plan to use an old IDE drive I have for storage. Pictures, text files, web design files, that sorta thing.

But here's the problem. The IDE drive already has a copy of windows on it. I'm pulling it out of an old pc (which I happen to be using now) that's running only one HDD, and I can't decide if I should stick it in the new build before or after windows is installed. If I do it before windows is installed, would the mobo try to start from that first, or should it default to the cd drive, which I want? If it were to just start from the cd drive, then I could just install windows and then format the drive from there.

 

[PickledGecko]

In BIOS choose boot from CD as 1st boot device and none as 2nd 3rd etc in order to install windows. As windows CD boots, you need to press F6 to instal SCSI drivers (you can only do this with a floppy so copy them from the Mobo CD onto a floppy). Then you can wipe the IDE drive by deleting its partitions, then format the SATA and install windows on it. Then in when CD asks to reboot for the first time, go into BIOS and choose boot from SCSI as 1st boot device. This will complete the windows install. You can then format the IDE drive for use inside windows.

Thats how I would do it anyway.

 

[sinkoman]

Thanks! I never though of wiping it before formating the sata from the bios.

He he. srry, this is my first build and i'm just trying to plan everything out, so as not to run into issues while working.

 

[sinkoman]

Ok, so i'm getting the secondary ide drive formatted in windows as me speak, which means, yay! My first build went smooth.

But, this is taking hella long. I didn't check the time when I started, but I managed to go downstairs and get a drink, come back upstairs, twiddle my thumbs a bit, mess with some anti virus settings, take a dump, and come back and what, 15 minutes later it's just hitting the halfway mark. Is it supposed to take this long?

 

[duffers20]

Formatting takes a while if the drive is either old and slow, like 5400rpm, or if its huge. Its pretty usual for the formatting to take a long time. My mate was complaining to me when he had to format his 500gb raid! Think it took the best part of an hour and a half!