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I have 2 drives in my PC. I want to reformat the main drive and start windows again from scratch.

My secondary hard drive is NTFS.

After reformatting drive 1, will drive 2 work as normal and be totally readable?

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3 Answers 3

Yes, but bear in mind unless you have an OS installed on drive 2 you will have to reinstall Windows first or at least boot some OS to read the second drive.

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Yes. As long as when you reinstall Windows you make sure (in the select partition screen) not to touch your secondary drive. Windows install will only format the target partition.

As always with data issues don't do this to hastily, make sure you double check before hitting any confirm buttons and know what will happen.

To make extra sure you can of course remove your secondary hard disk (with the power off, of course :) ) then there's no risk of the Windows installation wiping it.

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Technically Yes. You may encounter problems if you have Security Permissions assigned to any folders or files on drive but with enough determination you can add your new credentials to the Permissions.

As a precaution you might also want to disconnect the drive you are not formatting during the Format and Windows Installation.

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+1 for mentioning potential ACL problems. –  Joey Aug 4 '09 at 11:29
Note that encrypted (blue) folders will have security permissions. –  hyperslug Aug 4 '09 at 14:31

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