Added WDCaviar Green 2TB, Do I need to format to assign a Drive letter? It will take all night!!!

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rivrbyte

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Hello,
I have Windows XP now. I am adding new memory and another HDD, before I doa clean install with WIN7.

I am in the midst of changing WinXP 32Bit to Win7 64Bit OS, and wanted to move the majority of my WD 500GB Internal to the new 2TB WD.

Then format my WD 74GB Raptor, and then use my 500GB as my boot drive for the OS and programs, since my RAPTOR is filling up way too fast. I'll use that as a storage, even though it's faster than the 500GB.

I initialized the drive in Disk management,and then thinking the NTFS file system is the norm, and I never heard a RAW before,but when I see DO NOT FORMAT HDD, or ASSIGN A LETTER OR PATH, I want the (G:) as my assigned drive, then if I want to make this drive file system a NTFS, then it proceeds to FORMAT. Since these drives are already factory formatted,is there a way NOT to format and still have the (G:) and the NTFS system, of do I have to let this format all night and all day since this is 2000GB.

If I did not format this drive, (like I started to, then cancelled) then it becomes a RAW File system, is that a bad thing,or better than NTFS? so, I'll wait to hear back.

Thank you.

PS...I'm getting guys telling me the RAPTOR is way past it's life and time to dump,and others tell me to use it still as a boot drive because of it's speed,so if I could install Win7 only on the raptor,then assign the programs on the 500GB Drive,but maybe the programs needs windows to work properly, so never mind. best to keep it all on the same drive.
 
Whatever you do, do not change the windows installation c: drive letter to something else.
When windows update or any other major significant hardware drivers change for new ones, things can get kind of ugly when some updates only want the (C) drive destination install letter. ;)
 
Thank you, but I'm not thinking of changing the (C) to another letter, all I want to do is KEEP the NTFS System on this NEW G drive, if this is what I should do.

I noticed when I chose ASSIGN DRIVE LETTER. I chose (G) then I saw RAW in between the other two NTFS (C-Boot OS drive) and (F - 500GB Storage drive) Is RAW a new or old drive system? all I know of is the NTFS and FAT32.

Given that this is 2000GB (2TB) drive, all I wanted to do was to name this new drive (G) and keep have this a NTFS file system, and NOT format an already formatted drive that would tale several hours to do so.
Floppy (A - removed from system)
Local Disk (C)
DVD-RW (D)
DVD/CD-RW (E)
Storage drive (F)
NEW 2TB storage drive (G)
 
raw is the state of the hard drive before it is formatted. and raw is actually not usable by windows.
so if you'd like to use your new 2TB hard drive, just leave it as ntfs.
 
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