if i remember right, whatever is existing on the drive will be saved and converted to a "windows old" file,...it will either show up on the desktop or the C: drive afterward...that is of course, unless you choose to reformat...but don't go by me, google is your friend
I'm guession my Google skills are weak, but the specific question I think I need to answer is: does an install of Windows 8 (or 7) to a HDD which has data but has never had an OS installed on it (so a new install not an upgrade) maintain the existing data on that drive?
Or, because that drive may never have been formatted, or because Windows has to create a partition for system files, will the existing data be lost (because the existing partition needs to be split or similar)?
What I could find on Google all appeared to assume I was upgrading or clean installing Win 8 onto a HDD which had previously had a Windows OS.