im building a new computer soon, but i dont want to go through the trouble of backing up all my data, can i just hook up my old hard drive on my past computer, to my new computer that ill be building soon? i just want to know if im going to have to go and back everything up and go buy windows at a store, and start over. what should i do?
2006-07-23 08:21:19 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Computers & Internet ➔ Other - Computers
It is generallly considered a bad idea to just put your old HDD in a new system. I have separate drives in mine and soon will be building a new system; my data and program drives should be fine but will re-do my drives with operating systems.
2006-07-23 08:29:07 · answer #1 · answered by heinlein 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I assume you are a home user trying to save yourself some work.
Depends: is your operating system oem? Not sure? Look on the End-User License Agreement OR Right-click on my computer and click on properties. In the 25-digit serial number, do you see OEM anywhere? Yes? Then STOP. Go buy a new OS. But if No, Okay. I'm assuming you are using at least Windows 98. If not, then go buy a new operating system. Otherwise... now this is the tricky part. From your description, I surmise you want to transfer (1) hard drive, with your operating system, into your new pc. On the butt-end of the hard drive, you will see is has a bunch of pins, and a little hood over two of them. If you examine the bottom of the hard drive, it gives you a little list of what the different jumper positions are. We already know that this drive is MASTER. When you fill the other 3 IDE slots (your pc has four, and they can be used for hard drives, dvd drives, etc.) the one on the same cable as your master drive needs to have its jumper set to SLAVE. All of this applied equally to the other two IDE ports - one to MASTER, one to SLAVE.
Now to be honest with you, I'd go ahead and invest the extra $150 for Windows XP. Go to Sam's Club or WalMart and get a huge hard drive - they're really cheap now. You be thanking yourself later.
Here's how you keep all your data:
Put the whopper hard drive in slave position.
Fdisk it.
Format it (select the option to install system files)
Go into your existing windows explorer and copy EVERYTHING from your old drive to the whopper drive. Go to bed.
The next morning, set the whopper drive to MASTER and remove the old drive.
Now you can upgrade your operating system without losing your installations.
One final note - I personally keep a small drive, about 10 GB as my MASTER driver just for the operating system, and have a MASSIVE drive as the SLAVE upon which I keep a few backups of the smaller drive. This makes upgrades and repairs / replacements easy.
2006-07-23 15:36:57 · answer #2 · answered by James F 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
.You can definitely install your old hard drive in your new pc.
HOWEVER...
Will it be the ONLY hard drive? or are you adding it as a SECOND hard drive?
We recommend adding it as a secondary drive to access your data, and installing a FRESH OS on your NEW hard drive FIRST.
The issue of whether you can transfer the OS license depends on how you acquired the previous OS...
If it is Windows XP, and it came preinstalled (OEM) it is NOT transferable to a new pc... You WILL have to acquire a NEW OEM license for EACH PC you own...
If it was a RETAIL purchased license, then it IS transferable to a new pc.
You will have to look at the original box to determine the conditions of the EULA (End User License Agreement) regarding the transferability from machine to machine.
2006-07-23 15:23:09 · answer #3 · answered by N2FC 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you hook up your old hard drive you will no longer be able to boot your old copy of windows. You'll have to reinstall Windows but the files will be retained.
2006-07-23 15:25:38 · answer #4 · answered by erkzh 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
yes you can just take out your old hard drive and place it in your other comptuer and you will not have to back up at all everything is saved on the hard drive, and when you start up your new built comptuer it will automaticly find the old hard drive and install it to work on your comptuer
2006-07-23 15:26:58 · answer #5 · answered by ? 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
if the old drive fits and has the power then i dont see a problem...
2006-07-23 15:24:44 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It won't be new if you use your old hard drive. I may be wrong.
2006-07-23 15:27:52 · answer #7 · answered by sumrtanman 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋