Formatting a Second Hard Drive?

Hey everyone, I'm in a fix and hope you can help. I have recently bought a Second Hard Drive for my computer (Samsung 160GB - EIDE interface) I got it up and running but I just left my old hard drive mounted underneath it just in case my new one didn't work out.

Well, it's a good HD but I need to slick it and reformat it. What I'm wondering is, can I daisy chain the new HD and the old HD as master/slave and reformat my new HD while using my old HD to operate my day to day tasks (everything is as it was on my old HD so I can just plug it up and go). I've just never hooked up 2 HD's. So I don't know if I could use my old one and work on my new one in my spare time by having them both hooked up.

Any advice on how to do this?

Thanks, Randy
PS: running Windows XP Home Edit.

 

Plug them both up, set the jumpers on the back to cable select. Boot the machine up and enter the bios and make sure the boot sequence is to boot from the old disk first. An easy way to tell which is which is to check the size, or the make. The bios should list both. Exit the bios and contiue the boot sequence.
You would then want to use DISKPART to set partitions and format the new drive. You don't have to partion the drive, but you will have to format it. Then you can keep plugging away on your old disk and have you new disk available.

 

Change the jumper on the back of the new HD to the Slave position, plug it into the middle connector of the ribbon cable, plug in the power connector, and mount the drive into the case, the hard drive is installed into the computer. Turn your computer (You may get a prompt about new hardware installed, just follow the instructions given.) then click Start>Run then type in "diskmgmt.msc" (not the quotes), click OK or hit the Enter key and from there you can format and partition the new hard drive. Right-click on the new drive and select format.

 

Thanks guys and gals. Randy