|
|
 |
|
|
Pages: 1
Installing an old hard drive into a newer pc..
(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)
Posted by: SKYHN
I have an old AMD 133mhz(i think its 133mhz) that wont run anymore. There is a hard drive in it that is about 7gb. Could I put it in my P4 System? And if yes, what would I need to do it?(Ive never installed a hard drive before)
I do not have any drivers for the hard drive, Im not sure even what kind it is.(Im about to open up the case so Ill post back later with more info).
Posted by: -Memnoch-
simple.
Remove the old drive from the dead machine.
Make sure the drive in the new machine is set to Master, and the old 7GB drive will be set as slave.
Connect the old drive to the same IDE cable that the other drive uses.
This alone should work fine.
If not, you may need to go into the bios and confirm that each drive is being seen as it should.
Sometimes just doing and auto detect on the IDE channels will refresh it correctly.
Everyonce in awhile something can come up, but its rare. Fairly easy stuff for the most part.
Posted by: SKYHN
Simpler than I thought.
What I want to do is copy my OS and some programs/files from my main drive to this drive. Then I want to partition the main drive. I might get WinXP soon since it is a lot faster than WinME, but I would want to keep WinME in case certain things wont work with XP(I believe my CDRW does not work in WinXP and a few other things).
No sense in letting that hard drive go to waste.
Posted by: -Memnoch-
In most cases, you will not be able to boot off the OS of a drive that was loaded from another machine.
Everything will still be there on the drive, but as the hardware and other system variables will not be what the os will be looking for, it will not boot.
Like trying to use your house key to start my car.
Posted by: SKYHN
Well what im proposing is copying the OS to the secondary drive, Partitioning the main drive, then copying the OS back to the main drive. Will that work?
Posted by: Sarc
It should technically work SKYHN.
You would have to copy practically everything though.
"?:\WINDOWS"
"?:\Program Files"
And any other directories where important or crucial data is stored.
These are needed to ensure that everything is lined up properly. If this were a Win2K/XP machine the "Documents and Settings" directory would need to be saved too.
Keep in mind that if you do this from DOS (you'll have to, to move the Windows directory) it will more than likely take a loooooooong time. Windows is able to move files around alot faster than DOS can, at-least in my experiance. Or if you have another machine, you could put both drives into that machine and use it's Windows install to move things around on your other two drives, but that would be a lot of moving.
This can be done manually if you get everything.
A couple of options that require a bit of money, but would make your task a lot easier would be to either pick up a copy of Partition Magic, this way you would be able to re-arrange the partitions without moving your data off to another drive, still make a backup though.
Or, a copy of Ghost. This way you could install both drives, and as long as you don't have more data than the 7GB drive, you could let Ghost do a bit by bit copy of your main drive onto the 7GB drive. Then do your partitioning, and Ghost is back.
If you do decide to do it manually, just make sure you get everything. If you don't chances are, you'll just have to re-install everything.
Posted by: SKYHN
Does partition Magic allow you to partition a drive without formating or deleting data?
Posted by: Heathen
 Quote:
|
Does partition Magic allow you to partition a drive without formating or deleting data?
|
YUP
Posted by: SKYHN
Ill have to look into that then. Is there like different versions, like Standard and Pro?
Posted by: SKYHN
Holy crap, I have no clue how to get the hard drive out of the old PC. The case of the old PC is not a tower, but a desktop and its very compact. I got the cables off the hard drive but I cant get the hard drive out now.
The hard drive has open circuits on the top too...whats up with that?
And to make matters worse, the screws that are holding the hard drive in the bay are underneath a bar that goes across the side of the PC that is Soldered onto the case....
|
|
|
|
|
