Hard Drive Question
 

I took the hard drive out of an old PC to use as a mass storage device (formatted it, etc). Now I want to put it back in the old PC to use it as normal.

What do I have to do to achieve this?

Obvs there's no opperating system on the HD at the moment. Do I just need to <s>illegally download</s> buy a copy of Windows XP/7 and load it on to the HD? Will it be good to go at that point?

Yes

If you're using the hard drive as the main drive that has the OS on it then yeah you need to burn windows to a cd/dvd, if you don't already have a windows disc, and it will give you the option to format/install the OS from the disc when you start the pc again.

Just need to get my hands on a copy of windows then. *Hint Hint*

Do I just need to right click > format to wipe the Hard Drive clean?

If you haven't already, put it back in your old computer and startup the computer with your Windows disc. Launch the disk at the prompt (unless you've changed boot priorities, in which case just change them back for now).

When you get to the Windows setup screen it will give you the option to format your drive there. You can format it before but there's no real point. Might as well do it during the install.

Aaaaaaaaaaand does anybody have a link to d/l Windows?

You can download trial versions of Windows 7 from the MS website.