Vista - Question about installing a second HDD

I apologize in advance. I wasn't sure where to post this.

I have a custom built computer.

Specs:
Q6600 Intel Quad Core @ 2.4 Ghz
4 GB of Patriot DDR2 1066
Asus P5KC Motherboard
Nvidia 8800 GTX 768MB
IDE DVD Burner drive.
500 GB 7200 RPM Maxtor sata HDD
Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit.

I wanted to temporarily install a second hard drive from an old Dell Dimension 8300.

Specs:
Intel Pentium 4 @ 3.0Ghz
2GB of DDR 400
Nvidia 6800gt
120Gb 7200 RPM Barracuda sata HDD
Windows XP home edition

I wanted to install it to back up some files from my custom built incase I had to format it after I flashed my bios. I was hoping I could install it without formatting the the new drive. I still use the old computer.

I wanted to drag some files to second drive and delete them or access them later if I ended up having to wipe my custome rig, and then be able to plug the second drive back into the old comp when I needed to use it.

I could not see the drive in "my computer".

I read some things online and talked to someone who said that I would have to formatt my second HDD in order to be able to use it in Vista. Is that true?

Make sure it is assigned a primary partition drive letter (E: ) under Computer-"manage", if not assign it one so you can see it under "computer"

Hi Larz, And welcome to the Vista forums

one thing to try is - in Vista go to the start menu and right click computer and select manage.

select the disk management option.

Hopefully you will be able to see the drive in the list - you should be able to right click and assign a drive letter to the drive which will make it visible in vista.

I use the work hopefully above because there are sometimes issues with drives containing other operating systems. Also if the drive is formatted with NTFS you may have to take ownership from within vista to write to the drive.

Hope this helps

Yes it's formatted with NTFS. It has windows XP and all the drivers installed on it for the old computer, including various documents and programs, but it has about 50 GB free.

I havent been home yet to try suggestions.

Thanks for the welcome.

Hi Larz,

one thing that may be worth the effort, and assuming you have suitable software, is to create a separate partition on the "free Space" and just give that space a drive letter in Vista. This way the XP partition will not need to be exposed to vista at all, just in case a "Live" OS causes problems