OK, a couple of problems here. The 9 year old drive will have drivers, etc. for the HP and could very likely cause errors or blue screens if you choose to use it as the boot drive. You could reformat and clean install Windows but a 9 year old HDD is approaching if not already at the end of it's life. Remember there are 2 kinds of HDD. Those that have failed and those that are going to fail. It is the reality of mechanical drives. Now if you simply want to have the drive for the data it has and use it for a non-OS drive that is possible but with the same caveat. That drive is going to fail eventually.
Hi All Got this new Dell G5 since my 9 year old HP Envy had a critical issue where it kept telling me its going to blow up at any moment and i had to start it through bios every time. So decided to get another comp. Anyway since i do not have much storage on the G5, i was wondering if i could put in my 9 year old Seagate Barracuda 3000GB in since it has a space for one and can it going in with all the data still on it or do i need to reformat it.  Cheers,
Dell G5 5000 adding Seagate Barracuda 3000GB storage