Formatting any partition causes loss of access to data recorded on it. Deleting a partition does likewise. You will want to copy anything important to another drive or media first. It is possible that putting the old drive in an external enclosure will be seamless and you will not need to partition/format but this is not guaranteed. I've had it both ways with this.
I'm am making the switch from desktop over to laptop. I already have my laptop and it does not have sufficient memory for all my media files. I have an internal drive on my desktop that I use specifically for media files and it is just about completely full (~22GB). I want to buy a case and turn this drive into an external drive for my laptop so I can still listen to music, etc. while using my laptop. I was reading on how to make your own external hard drive and it gives these instructions (after the actual putting together part):
"1. Click on Disk Management and locate the new drive.
2. Right click the drive and select Initialize from the list of options.
3. Right click the unpartitioned space and select New Partition to launch the new drive formatting wizard.
4. Choose Primary Partition and click next.
5. Unless you have some need to divide the drive into multiple sections, stick with the default partition, which converts all available space into one big drive.
6. Choose your favorite drive letter and click Next.
7. Label the drive with something easy to identify, especially if you have lots of drives (like my system, which recognizes all the media slots as individual drives). Check the box next to perform a quick format.
- At this point Windows performs a quick format on the drive. -
When the process is finished it should read Healthy. The new drive is ready to load with more audio and video files (or whatever else you choose to store on the drive)."
MY QUESTION IS THIS:
when I locate the new drive on the computer and it formats the drive... wil it erase all the files that are currently on the drive? I need to know before I do this because I have many irreplaceable files on the drive from past bands I have played in, friends bands, local shows, etc. and there is just too much to back up on cd's. Thank you to everyone who reads this and provides assistance. It is much appreciated.

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