Added Caviar green 2TB, do I need to format to assign a Drive letter, use NTFS?

I have my new Win7 professional soon to be installed. I presently have Winxp.


Added Caviar green 2TB, do I need to format to assign a Drive letter? It will take a very long time!!


Hello,
I am in the midst (I have not yet done this) of changing WinXP 32Bit to Win7 64Bit OS, and wanted to move the majority of my WD 500GB Internal to the new 2TB WD, PRIOR to installing WIN7.
This NEW WD 2TB Caviar Green is already FORMATTED from the factory, why would I format it again, just to have the NTSF and the assigned (G) letter? Are these my only options?


I installed the new HDD, I initialized the drive in Disk management, what I want is the NTFS file system, but assigned kletter then saw RAW”, which and I never heard of before, but when I saw 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 run for a few hours, since this is 2000 GB HDD.

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
Then I was going to reformat 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 storage, even though it's faster than the 500GB.


I went to see the new G drive in EXPLORER, clicked on it, and it told me it was not formatted, and if I wished to format??? Do I run the format anyway??? Thank you!

In order to use a HD/SSD it must be formated and contain at least one partition. RAW is the term used when the HD/SSD has not been formated.

If you are planning on transferring everything from one drive to the other.
If you are planning to convert from Windows XP to Windows 7 at the same time.

I would suggest:
Remove the drive that has all your files on it and leave it as is.
Insert the new drive and install Windows 7.
Partition the drive however you like, BTW this can be done after install. Disk Management in Windows 7 will allow for Shrinking and Expanding drive partitions.
Once you have Windows 7 installed with partitions setup the way you want, connect the original drive. Then copy your files over to the new drive and place them where you want them to go.