computer expert please

[ving]

received a new computer sans HD. if I get the hard drive from my old computer and put it in the new will it work? I assume that if the answer is yes then on first startup win XP will find new hardware that will need to be installed and thats about it all other programs should work?? any ideas?

or do i need to start from scratch

[macmich]

i am not a expert ving
when i swapped this year
they made a external harddrive out of my old one and i accerss the files from that
cheers macca

[Tannin]

In general, no.

In detail, it depends on whether the plug & play system is able to adapt to the sudden change of 100% of the hardware. Usually it isn't.

Why not just buy a new hard drive and do the job properly? Cost is about $100. How much is your data worth?

[agb]

How was it you got a new computer without a hard drive?
New hard drive could be as cheap as $60 for 1Tb.
http://www.computeralliance.com.au/p...?qryPart=12419

[deef]

From personal experience, yes, it should work, having done it myself. As you said, it will be looking for new drivers for the motherboard, video card and probably other things, depending what is in the new machine when doing that first boot. So when you do the change, have all the driver disks and windows disk handy to instal the motherboard drivers and whatever else is asked for.

Of course it goes without saying (but I will ... LOL) that you have all your data on the hd backed up before pulling it out of your old machine.

Good luck.

[Speedway]

Hi David.
Q 1. Why sans HDD? A new Sata 500G HDD is under $40.
Q 2. What is the old HDD (SATA or IDE) and capacity?
I would get a new 500G HDD, fit that and install your operating system and program files to that. Get a USB enclosure (IDE ones are available on E-Bay for under $10 with power supply) and fit the old Hard drive to that, then transfer all the wanted data to the new drive, check that there is no corruption, then format the old drive and use it as an external back up. If you need more capacity 1Tb drives are only $60- $80 and can be added as necessary.
Keith.

PS I agree with Tony that you would most likely not be able to just run the old HDD as the driver conflicts would cause too many problems.

[colinbm]

Not so simple Ving.
I have had HD replaced or swapped & it is back to0 square one each time :-(
You can save the data you have, but the operating system & programs have to be done again & all setup, then the old data can be swapped back onto it.
So get an external drive & backup all your data etc.
A pain in the buttocks I know only too well ;-)
Cheers
Col

[ameerat42]

I'd go from scratch. Too many changes to the hardware for the OS to effectively handle. Time wasted thus could be better spent doing a new install.
(But I'm not an expert.)
Am. (Not!)

[Rattus79]

I've tried to do exactly that before. It was a failed attempt.

What I do is to have backup of my main windows partition with my most common installed programs on it done about a week after a fresh copy of xp installed. That way, if anything happens, I just need to grab my email .pst file and that's about it. Always have your "my documents" folder stored on a seperate partition.

If windows falls over, you don't need to go through the whole thing again, just format that main partition (I use a linux boot CD for this) and move the backup over again. Job's done.

It's not a fix for this upgrade, but may help on future 'ahem' Microsoft related screw ups.

[ving]

ok that pretty much answers the question and it is as i thought. if it can be done its not an easy task.

the computer was given to me by my father as a gift. it has a HDD in it with operating system installed. i just didnt want to go thru the process of reinstalling everything over again.... oh well.

[phild]

Usually with XP you can do a repair install and all will be well, I've done it many times at work on our PC's when motherboards have failed to save downtime. It's not difficult BTW.

[Cage]

Hi David

I've previously done what you asked about, swapping out one HDD into another set-up.

Provided there is compatibility with the connections, i.e. SATA or IDE, the OS on your old HDD will have generic drivers for your basic hardware, usually enough to get you up and running, then go on-line and Microsoft will look for the latest drivers for the rest of your hardware.

The other alternative is to run with your new set-up and install your old HDD as a second drive. It's then an easy task to drag 'n' drop files from your old HDD to the new one.

You may have problems with validation if you run your old HDD in the new set-up as MS may deem it to be a new computer, particularly if you have downloaded the Validation tool in XP. Vista and W7 have it built in.

Mate, the bottom line is it's worth a try.

[Tannin]

I've previously done what you asked about, swapping out one HDD into another set-up.

Provided there is compatibility with the connections, i.e. SATA or IDE, the OS on your old HDD will have generic drivers for your basic hardware, usually enough to get you up and running, then go on-line and Microsoft will look for the latest drivers for the rest of your hardware.

Sorry. Just not true.

The reason two people here have tried this and it has worked is because they just happened to be swapping from a system which was quite similar to the new system in the key parameters. If you swap between two identical systems it always works. If you swap between two systems using the same motherboard chipset it nearly always works. If you swap between two systems using different but related motherboard chipsets it quite often works. If you swap between two systems with unrelated chipsets, it almost never works. In practice, it is much more common to be swapping between unrelated chipsets. (I couldn't tell you even roughly how many drive swaps and motherboard changes I and my staff have done, but certainly some tens of thousands. If there was a better method, believe me, we would have found it years ago.)

Note that "works" may not mean "works well and is reliable, fast, and stable". If in doubt, a clean install is always best.

Note also that these comments pertain to healthy, uninfected, undamaged systems with a straightforward history and no software weirdness - i.e., about 2 out of 3. The remaining ones will give you trouble no matter what chipsets are involved.

A "repair install", by the way, is so close to a complete fresh install in terms of the disruption involved and the time it takes, that you might as well do the whole thing and know it has been done properly.

[colinbm]

Do you still have a dollar from each swap, " certainly some tens of thousands "
Col

[geoffsta]

Certainly go for the re-install. Try to use the old stuff (Which will work) and it will be as slow as a snail in a traffic jam.
You can buy a cradle (Internal and external) to take you old drive. Then when you are satisfied that you have all the data off it that you need. Format it and use it as a backup.

[Tannin]

Do you still have a dollar from each swap?

Nope.

Oh I got a dollar from each one, quite a few dollars, Colin, but most of them went straight back out again to meet the payroll (not to mention the various other expenses, of which there were plenty). Various others of those dollars I got to put in my pocket - they are long since spent now, alas. These days I am semi-retired and only do maybe one or two a week, on average. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

[ricktas]

Computers can be very sensitive as Tannin says. I recently did a BIOS upgrade, and once done, the computer ran fine, except it failed to recognise that my PC had an SSD drive in it, and I had to reformat the SSD and re-install Windoze onto it, to get it working as I wanted.

As Tannin says, sometimes it will work, sometimes it won't. Plug-n-Play, is really Plug-n-Play IF you are lucky

[Tannin]

Plug-n-Play, is really Plug-n-Pray

(Spelling corrected.)

[ving]

anyhow... dont worry guys. i am going with the whole new system
w7 looks like fun. and this computer is much better.

[arthurking83]

To add to Tony's (common sense) points of view, even a small(but significant) change in the BIOS can lead to boot failure, so a change doesn't even have to involve any hardware changes either.

I did this some time back on my current box, where I wanted to see if a change from IDE to AHCI in the BIOS would help speed up one single solitary external eSATA drive I was having (speed)troubles with.

In a word it did help, but at the expense of booting up the PC again.
The system change from IDE to AHCI required a change within the Windows OS prior to the BIOS change, which was mentioned in a warning... which of course I didn't read!!! did I ? ... but I'm prone not to doing anyhow, so I was doomed to reinstall the OS all over again anyhow.(system was rather new anyhow, and I tend to do a few installs until I find a good balance of speed and stability anyhow).

Anyhow! I was under the impression that Windows XP was tied into particular pieces of hardware ???
That is, it's not a simple matter of changing to a new PC with an old hdd, the OS sees too many changes in hardware(I think that new 4 pieces were the limit) and then you had to go through the process of registration, and verification all over again via the M$ site.