Moving old hard drives into a new computer -- does it work??

Question

I am in the process of building a new computer.  I have two hard drives from my previous dell, one is a 160gb running win xp and the other a new 320gb I just purchased running win vista.  My question is, can I move both of these hard drives into my new computer without formatting them?? I realize my dual boot may not be hot-swappable into a new machine, but do I have any options?? I do not planning on buying a new HDD for my new computer, and I have a lot of files, pictures, etc that I can't access right now on both of these hard drives. I don't want to lose that data if I don't need to..If anyone could help me, I would greatly appreciate it...thanks!!

shesagordie · Answer

@spidey9879 wrote:

I am in the process of building a new computer. I have two hard drives from my previous dell, one is a 160gb running win xp and the other a new 320gb I just purchased running win vista. My question is, can I move both of these hard drives into my new computer without formatting them?? I realize my dual boot may not be hot-swappable into a new machine, but do I have any options?? I do not planning on buying a new HDD for my new computer, and I have a lot of files, pictures, etc that I can't access right now on both of these hard drives. I don't want to lose that data if I don't need to..If anyone could help me, I would greatly appreciate it...thanks!!

No, you cannot install hard drives from one computer into a different computer, you can use the same hard drives, but you will need to reinstall windows, drivers and applications.

Bev.

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ejn63 · Answer

If you cannot afford to lose that data, DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, try to boot a foreign system from that drive. Mount it in an external enclosure, attach it to a working system and BACK UP your data.

For that matter, having one copy of irreplaceable data on a single hard drive is a recipe for disaster - ALL hard drives will fail eventually and you WILL lose your data at some point.

Back it up immediately.

juliowong · Answer

The answer is:YES IT DOES WORK.   But there are different ways and best practices. Let's use 'HDD' for HardDiskDrive. Let's assume that you removed the old HDD from you old computer.   1. On a new computer, the best practice is always use newer HDD that came with the computer to boot and run the operating system.   2. When adding an old hdd to your new computer it should be used as storage only.   Now, how should you add your old hard drive to the new system?   Option 1 The easiest way is tu buy an external enclosure for 3.5' HDD that runs thru either USB or SATA or 1394 (aka FireWire), assembly the enclosure with the old HDD and plug it in the port.   Option 2 A little bit more work to be done but also a great solution: step1. Check the jumpers on the old HDD and set it for Cable Select (CS). step2. Open your new computer. step3. Find an available connector for the HDD (SATA or IDE) and find a data cable for it. step4. Find an available power connector for the HDD (SATA uses different from IDE). step5. Secure HDD in the computer. step6. Connect all cables. step7. Power on the computer and enter SETUP to check if the HDD is recognized.   If it appears on SETUP, your done. Let the computer boot up and you should be able to see all data on such HDD.   Good Luck!

spidey9879 · Answer

Thanks for the help, I'll try it.   Assuming this works, would I have to re-install windows onto my old hard drive?? and if so, i'd probably need a new copy too right? Also, if I use an external enclosure and connect it to my new motherboard via SATA, would that work as my primary hdd? thanks again...

juliowong · Answer

Ok, both options I described are meant to use the HDD as a storage (secondary), that way you can get all data out.   The HDD on the enclosure can be used as primary if you manage to make the computer boot thru a USB attached device. (I've read on other Linux forums that it might be possible.)   If you want to try something else, explain me and I will see if I know about it to give you some advice.

Storage, Drives & Media

Moving old hard drives into a new computer -- does it work??

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