If you're asking if XP Home's existence is somehow related to the connection
to your new PC, no its not.
If you have personal data on it, maybe formatting isn't the best idea.
Moving that data to your new PCs hard drive, then formatting makes more
sense. Possibly moving that data back to the external afterwards.
What you do with the external hard drive is your business. Your data is
your responsibility. Treat both that way.

--
Jonny
"Buckeye Novice" <BuckeyeNovice@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4D209EB4-C3BD-4547-B87C-B70DEAB07F8C@microsoft.com...
> After buying a new computer with XP Professional on it, I then added my
old
> hard drive as an external. It comes up as "Local Drive". The old drive
had
> XP Home previously installed.
>
> I have not had any conflicts, but should I re-format the old hard drive or
> leave matters as is ?