Copy or Move Hard Drive.....

[mitchshin]

I have a HP computer with a bad motherboard/processor. I have a new HP computer with XP installed on it. What are my options for moving the data from the old to the new? Can I just add the old drive as a slave to the new computer? Will XP on the old drive interfere with the new XP? Or is there a way to move the data off the old drive and get it onto the new drive?
I am open to any suggestions. Thanks.

 

[paparazi]

Just re-jumper the old drive to slave and connect to the new PC.
As long as the boot sequence is set correctly the motherboard will see's the new drives OS boot setor first.
The OS on the older drive shouldn't be a problem.
You could choose to wipe the old drive once you have transfered what you want to keep to the new, you could even transfer the files back and use the old drive as extra storage.
Martin

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Participate and help others.

 

[edfair]

You can move anything. Getting it to work again is another question.
You could put the old drive in the new box and retain everything but there is no guarantee that you could get hardware drivers for the new parts, and thereby lose the ability to use the new one the same way you used the old one.
You could clone the drive, but you would have the same problems.
You could attempt to load the programs on the new one like they were installed on the old one but that may not work.
You can add the old hard drive to the new box as a secondary, but the programs on the old drive won't be tied into the new operating system so there may not be good results.
Probably the best solution would be to add the old drive as secondary, reinstall the programs to the new OS, then use the old data where it exists. But you may be at some risk as some programs may not load or work.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.