A Question Before I Move My Hard Drive...

[kanin247]

To Whom It May Concern:
I recently bought a new desktop PC and want to take my Hard Drive from my old desktop PC and put it in my new one (as a secondary drive). Is it as simple as mounting the drive and connecting cables or will I run into any problems as far as compatibility goes with the OS (old HD = Win98, new HD = WinXP)? Will it just read the drive as a secondary drive or will it want/require XP files to read the drive? Ideally, I want to keep all my files on my old drive intact (avoid having to format the drive).

I would appreciate any assistance. Thank you.

kanin

 

[JimInKS]

My experience is that you don't really need the space on the old hard drive you just want the files. If for example your old hard drive is 2G and the new one is 60G you have plenty of space to just copy all the files from the old hard drive onto the new one.

You can do this by creating a directory like "Old Computer" and just coping the entire contents of the old hard drive to this folder. Then everything from the old system is available on the new and the old system is still operational.

If you can network the two PC's that is probably the easiest way to do this or you can temporarily connect the old hard drive to the new system and copy the files that way.

If you take the hard drive route here's how I would do it.
Remove old hard drive.
Open the case the new new computer.
Disconnect the end of the flat ribbon cable connected to the CD-ROM drive.
Connect the old hard drive using the CD-ROM cable. You can either get power by using a spare power cable or disconnect power from CD and use that.
You should just be able to let the old hard drive set on the case as long as you put something like a book under it to make sure it is insulated from the case.
Boot up the system and the old hard drive should be recognized.
Copy the files and then put everything back like it was.

 

[Jackiechan311]

It should really be that simple. The only thing you may want to watch out for is the jumper settings on the drive. If the new computer has more than just a hard drive, then you may have to deal with master/slave compatability. Please explain the layout of your old computer. For example, i have just recently gone thru the same procedure. My old computer had a HDD and a cd-rom, each on their own ide channel. I had to change both to slave status to interact with my new cd-rom and hdd.

 

[paparazi]

Yes, reset the jumpers on the old drive to slave, mount in a position where the IDE cable will reach, piggy back the drive on the connector midway down the ultra 80core/40pin IDE cable, restart.
Your XP should boot (being mounted on primary as IDE 0)if it doesn't you may need to reset the boot sequence to IDE 0 first.
once into windows, copy all files you want to keep from the old drive and onto the new, and format the old drive.
Now I know you said you didn't want to do this but I would recommend reformatting to NTFS as your main hardrive is likely to be this format type (check first) but also to get rid of all the rubbish on the old drive and start from fresh.
Once formatted copy your old files back over onto the old drive.
Just a word of warning* if your old drive is pre UDMA 66 it may slow down your newer UDMA 100/133 drive if left connected to the same IDE channel.
Obviously I don't know your configuration and pairing these drives still maybe your best option. Martin Please let members know if there advice has helped any.

 

[kanin247]

Jackiechan311,
Well, my old PC has a HD and 2 CD-ROMs with each (the HD and CD-ROM) connecting to their own IDE channel. The CD-ROMs are set-up via their Master/Slave configuration. The same goes for my new PC (HD, 2 CD-ROMs). So, the only thing I need to do is set the Master/Slave configurations for the HDs, right?

JimInKS,
Thanks for your input. Although, my plan was to actually use both HDs on my PC (not necessarily just obtaining my files). My old HD will used for music/media files and the new HD for everything else. Thanks again, though.

I appreciate everyone's help. Thanks.

kanin

 

[Jackiechan311]

Yea
on new drives, master is also hte single drive jumper setting, so you should just be able to set the new drive to slave and plug in the power and ide ad then boot. Shouldnt be any trouble at all. If you want a step by step, my aim screename is Jackiechan311