Remove programs from 2nd hard drive

Howdy all,

Okay this is going to sound like a stupid question so please bear with me.

I just got a new machine (thanks to fester who credits thoriphes [i think] so thanks to thor also) and after much nail biting and sweating I managed to get the hard drive from my old machine into my new machine as a slave drive (dam but that sounds sexy doesn’t it? :bad: ).

Anyway, the old drive still has a bunch of software installed on it that I would like to remove because I already went through the trouble of reinstalling it a couple of days ago on the new drive. Plus I’d like to use the new drive for software and the old drive to store data.

So here is my stupid question: what is the best way to uninstall those old programs without hurting the ones on the new HD? I could just start deleting folders but I worry about drivers and whatever other random files the software has put in other places. Do I need to go into the registry?

Thanks for any help/advice/suggestions!

:hr:

Ok,
On the old HD, there are apps and folders you need?
If not, you could delete the partition on the second HD, which would clear it all up.

I had this same problem, I had 2 HD’s, and I wanted to transfer data, and sort it all out. I’d take the HD with the stuff you don’t want/need, and just clear it. Then, create another partition.

Um, okay, pretend that I am really really dumb when it comes to computers, which isn’t far from the truth. :beam: How do I partition? Or delete a partition?

Right now both drives are showing as “Local Disk” and each assigned a letter. I don’t really need to transfer data, just remove apps from the old HD that I don’t want anymore because they are already loaded (duplicated) on the new HD.

Thanks for bearing with me . . . :sure:

Oh I’m sorry. It was my fault for not explaining! doh

They have the programs that allow you to partition your HD’s. A partition is like a preset space which all data is saved in that space. Usually HD’s have one partition, maybe two on them. But getting back to what I was saying, to partition, you can use the program called Partition Magic. But I was extrememly dispointed by this, becuase you have to pay for it! If you search on google for free HD partition apps, your bound to find one.

The best, and most efficent way to do it, is if you have your Windows Boot CD.
If you do have it, follow the directions to create a whole another Windows OS, and it’ll bring up a partition window. Which allows you to view/delete/create partitions.

Tell me if this helps! If not, I’ll help ya 'till ya get it.

Excuse my lack of vocab, still in HS :wink:

Thanks Grinch, I appreciate you sticking with me on this! :love:

But do I have to partition? I have two hard drives now, a master and a slave. I just want to remove the programs from the slave and make sure I get EVERYTHING including registry, drivers, etc. so that nothing conflicts with the software on the master HD.

Thanks again! :slight_smile:

So you want to erase the new hard drive? Everything? Use it for storage? Well just reformat it, and make shure it is in the NTFS filesystem. Here is how.

From what i understand, you have a master drive, and a slave drive. You CAN erase the slave drive USING the master drive as a tool ! And you do not even have to use a CD, or a program. You just have to use a little black screen called the command prompt.

  Forget partitions and everything, just do this:  

Go to: Start > Run > CMD (Type in CMD), (Do this on your master drive). You will now be reformatting the slave drive :wink: (He He , slave drive), using the master drive.

In the command prompt, it is hard to decide what to type in, since there are many things to consider while trying to decide what to type into this little black screen. So the best line to feed into command prompt would be:

   Format E: /FS:NTFS /Q

This formats your slave drive, in the NTFS file system, (So you will be able to use it for storage) and preforms a quick format! (AHEM: Erases your whole slave drive). Of course it does get more technical than this, like making sectors, sizes, tracks, and partitions, but for now, just do what the above says. :slight_smile:

Edit: Depending on if E: is your slave drive. If it is any other letter, just replace Format E: (With G: X: or whatever).

Your Welcome lunatic :wink:

But Axel has a great tutorial right here, and seems like it should work. But what I was saying, when you delete that partition, it’s pretty much reformatting. You just create a new NTFS partition. But I’d have to say follow Axel’s explanation, it’s more in depth and explains it well.

Good Luck!

Ha ha, ya’ll are great! :love: But I’m not sure that I’m being very clear here. I don’t want to partition and I don’t want to reformat anything. I just want to clean up the slave drive.

Okay so my old machine had Flash MX on it right? Then I get a new machine and I install Flash MX on the new machine. The I open up the new machine and I install the hard drive from the old machine. Now I have two copies of Flash MX, one on the new drive and one on the old drive. I want to get rid of the one on the old drive, so it doesn’t screw up the one on the new drive, and I want to make sure I get rid of all the pieces that get place in other places besides the programs folder when you install software (drivers, registries, etc.).

It was suggested to me that I get rid of the entire Windows folder on the old drive too, which has the system folder etc. so it doesn’t mess with the new drive. Is this what I want to do? What other folders should I get rid of? I just want to use the old hard drive to store stuff, not run stuff.

Thanks everyone!

Lol,
yes, when you reformat your HD, you are initially clearing it, and setting a whole new one up. Witch is what you want, from my understanding. After reformating, the HD will be completely empty, and ready for storage!

Yep, except that there is about 5 years worth of photos, flash projects, school projects, etc. on there that I need to stay on there . . .

I guess I could transfer that stuff to the new drive, reformat the old drive, then transfer it back. Would that be the easiest thing to do then? :thumb:

Well what I would do, is just back those files up. Ya know, burn em to a cd or two, then reformat. You should good then.

I think that would be the best thing to do, otherwise you would be using it for storage and have a useless windows filesystem on there, which takes up un-neccesary space. :wink:

Just have a clean NTFS, because you can drag and drop stuff back and forth between drives.

Edit: Also, burn on CD’s will work, like grinch says.

Thanks guys - took me until 1 a.m. to complete but she’s a clean machine now! :thumb: :beer:

Glad to hear you got it all cleared up. But in the future, if you ever come across this problem, you can freely delete the Windows folder as well as as any program folders from that drive without need to worry. Since you have your working version of Windows on your other drive, there is no need to worry about other things other than keeping your projects. But if it were me, formatting is always the best option if you do have that option.

Thanks behemoth-dan! :smiley: That makes total sense of course - its just so scary to delete anything so major like the Windows folder. Never know what I’m messing with so it makes me nervous to just start tossing stuff.

But yeah, I think reformatting is the cleanest way to go. I’m happy now that I have a clean drive with tons of room.

Thanks everyone! :bu:

Glad to see everything worked out ok!
Doesn’t it feel nice to have some much space :smiley:

Good Luck!