New hard drive question

I replaced my 500 gig HD with a 1tb HD, There was nothing wrong with the 500 gig HD, I just wanted the 1tb drive. Now today i upgraded to and 850 thermaltake PSU (from my previous, underpowered 500 watt PSU. Now i can run both drives (they are noth internal) . Here's My question, since the 500gig drive was for about 10 months my only drive, i have windows 7 installed on it. I am considering putt XP on it so i can run some of my games i like that wont run on 7, but lets say i just wanted to use it for data storage only. Shouldn't I need to get rid of windows 7 on it since i already have windows & on the C:drive ?
What do i need to do to the 500gig HD to make it for data storage only.
it is my E: drive.

 

If you want XP for your other games, XP needs to go on first, then Windows 7, so that XP is on C: and Windows 7 is on D:
If you want to you can create a seperate partition on the 500, or the 1tb hard drive to run both XP and Windows 7, and from within either operating system, right click MY Computer, and then click manage, the click disk management, and your new/other drive will show up as D: if only one operating system is on the first hard drive, or, E: if you have two operating syastems on the first hard drive.
However , if you have a cd/dvd ro this may show up before the second hard drive, and push it up to, say F:
You can check it by right clicking and seeing its properties (should be 500, or, 1tb.
To format it as the new drive for data, just right click when the drive is highlighted, and choose format-.
If you have an operating system on both hard drives, then you will need to look in the bios to see if you have the option to cable select the hard drive/operating system to start from, and choose the one you want.

 

If you just want it for data- the previous notes should help.

 

ok i formatted it for use with just data storage, and then tried to clean it with Ccleaner.
Ccleaner will not clean drive E: .
Within CCLEANER i go to options > include > add > and select E: drive

when i try to clean it, i get an error message that says : "for system safety reasons you cannot select this specific location"

Same thing happened when i ran CCLEANER as administrator .
how can I clean my new E: drive ?

Thanks for you help, btw !!

 

As it has formatted, you don't need to clean the drive.
If you are intent on getting rid of a virus, or, something, then you would use something like killdisk to over-write it with f's and o's, but as it is now formatted- I assume it is asigned a drive letter- then you should test it by sending, or, saving a file to it.

 

well, i just wanted to run CCleaner on it. There are no viruses . It is drive E:
it works fine ive already saved some files on it .
Thanks for your help, I was just wondering how to get CCleaner to work on the drive, just for the same reason I like to run it on my C: drive -it cleans trash files that arent truly deleted .
Its not that big of a deal i guess, but there may be a time when I would feel like a run of CCleaner on the E: drive might be a good idea.

 

Unfortunately, I do not use CCleaner, I use 'advanced windows care', - It does all the same stuff, and has a backup, in case I overdo the cleaning, so that I can put it back as it was, if needed.
This only does the partion that I am using at the time, so I would think that CCleaner works similarly.
If that is the case, and there is no operating system on the other drive, then deleting, and defragging that drive should keep it clean. Of course, if anyone can offer more advice on that, I would be pleased if they would enter the details on this post.:major
Good luck,:wave

 

Well, I did have Windows 7 installed on the drive. I am currently storing no data on t he drive and there are two files showing when i click on the drive :
$RECYCLE.BIN
And
System Volume Information
it is a 500gig drive, and it is showing 465 gigs free.
So, seems that something is taking 35 gigs of space there (windows 7?)
i did the right click > format method .
Id like to free up that 35 gigs if i could .
How could I do that ?

 

As Plodr explained- Drive is clean.

 

Thanks, y'all. Had I given it enough thought, I may have realized that myself . I do appreciate your responses and assistance.
Thanks a load !