Transferring hard disks

  • Thread starter Thread starter arkay
  • Start date Start date
A

arkay

Hi all, I'm new here so please bear with me.

My old PC recently crashed and when I tried to reboot there was no post
on the monitor. I had power to the tower and the monitor but absolutely
nothing on screen. I'm not too bothered about the old PC but I have
loads of files on the two hard drives I installed. The C: drive has my
old op' system, ME, and all my family photos etc that I never got round
to backing up, Yeah! I know, idiot! the D: drive has all my music and
video files.

Can I transfer both drives to my new PC (XP) to rescue the files. I've
been told the D: drive will just go straight in but because the C: has
an op' system on it, it could be a problem.

Cheers guys.
 
Can I transfer both drives to my new PC (XP) to rescue the files. I've
been told the D: drive will just go straight in but because the C: has
an op' system on it, it could be a problem.
Click to expand...

Yes it might do as both drives will have active partitions on them so I'm
not sure which one would win. I'm going to guess that your new PC C: drive
is the master on the first IDE channel. Therefore, a further guess is that
if you make sure that the old C: drive is the secondary master on the first
IDE channel then it will probably boot okay.

Cheers, Rob.
 
arkay said:
Hi all, I'm new here so please bear with me.
Click to expand...
My old PC recently crashed and when I tried to reboot there
was no post on the monitor. I had power to the tower and the
monitor but absolutely nothing on screen. I'm not too bothered
about the old PC but I have loads of files on the two hard drives
I installed. The C: drive has my old op' system, ME, and all my
family photos etc that I never got round to backing up, Yeah!
I know, idiot! the D: drive has all my music and video files.
Click to expand...
Can I transfer both drives to my new PC (XP) to rescue the files.
Yes.

I've been told the D: drive will just go straight in but because
the C: has an op' system on it, it could be a problem.
Click to expand...

Nope, just put each drive in the new system one by one and
copy the files you want off the old drive onto the new system.

The new system likely only has a single hard drive, so just put
one of the old drives on the same ribbon cable as that drive.

The main thing you will need to do is change the jumper on the
old drive so that it will be a slave to the drive in the new PC if
the new PC isnt using cable select. Best to check what the new
PC is doing about cable select first by checking how its jumpered.
If it is using cable select, usually labelled CS or C/S, you need to
jumper the old drive cable select too. It likely wont be jumpered
cable select currently. Both drives should have a label for the
jumpers on the drive itself, tho it may be more convenient to
use Everest on the new PC to see what drive is in that PC
rather than remove it so you can read the label. Once you
have got the drive model detail using Everest, get the
jumper detail off the hard drive manufacturer's web site.

If the drive in the new PC is jumpered master, you need to
jumper the old drive as slave. If the drive in the new PC is
a Western Digital, and not jumpered cable select, you will
need to adjust the jumpers on the WD drive too, but both
of these possibilitys arent all that likely since most new PCs
usually use cable select jumpering now.

Its pretty important to be careful with the old drives, particularly
ensuring that the ribbon cable is plugged in the right way around.
Most are polarised so will only go in one way, but not all. Its also
possible to force the power connector in the wrong way around
and that will usually kill the drive. The yellow wire on that connector
goes to the outside edge of the drive.
 
Yes it might do as both drives will have active partitions on them so I'm
not sure which one would win.
Click to expand...

Basically the one which is at the top of the queue in the boot order list
in the bios.
I'm going to guess that your new PC C: drive is the master on the first
IDE channel. Therefore, a further guess is that if you make sure that the
old C: drive is the secondary master on the first IDE channel then it
will probably boot okay.
Click to expand...

It should boot fine regardless, as long as there is only one
master and one slave on the ribbon cable its plugged into.

In the unlikely event that he manages to boot off it, its no
big deal now that the old PC is dead, he can just redo the
config of the new PC and boot off the XP drive again.
 
arkay said:
Hi all, I'm new here so please bear with me.
Click to expand...
My old PC recently crashed and when I tried to reboot there
was no post on the monitor. I had power to the tower and the
monitor but absolutely nothing on screen. I'm not too bothered
about the old PC but I have loads of files on the two hard drives
I installed. The C: drive has my old op' system, ME, and all my
family photos etc that I never got round to backing up, Yeah!
I know, idiot! the D: drive has all my music and video files.
Click to expand...
Can I transfer both drives to my new PC (XP) to rescue the files.
Yes.

I've been told the D: drive will just go straight in but because
the C: has an op' system on it, it could be a problem.
Click to expand...

Nope, just put each drive in the new system one by one and
copy the files you want off the old drive onto the new system.

The new system likely only has a single hard drive, so just put
one of the old drives on the same ribbon cable as that drive.

The main thing you will need to do is change the jumper on the
old drive so that it will be a slave to the drive in the new PC if
the new PC isnt using cable select. Best to check what the new
PC is doing about cable select first by checking how its jumpered.
If it is using cable select, usually labelled CS or C/S, you need to
jumper the old drive cable select too. It likely wont be jumpered
cable select currently. Both drives should have a label for the
jumpers on the drive itself, tho it may be more convenient to
use Everest on the new PC to see what drive is in that PC
rather than remove it so you can read the label. Once you
have got the drive model detail using Everest, get the
jumper detail off the hard drive manufacturer's web site.

If the drive in the new PC is jumpered master, you need to
jumper the old drive as slave. If the drive in the new PC is
a Western Digital, and not jumpered cable select, you will
need to adjust the jumpers on the WD drive too, but both
of these possibilitys arent all that likely since most new PCs
usually use cable select jumpering now.

Its pretty important to be careful with the old drives, particularly
ensuring that the ribbon cable is plugged in the right way around.
Most are polarised so will only go in one way, but not all. Its also
possible to force the power connector in the wrong way around
and that will usually kill the drive. The yellow wire on that connector
goes to the outside edge of the drive.


You can likely get the old PC going again with a new power
supply. With those symptoms, its usually a power supply failure.

There is a small possibility that a dying power supply can kill
stuff thats powered from it, but that isnt at all common and
shouldnt be risky to the new PC if a drive has been killed.
 
Got it sorted thanks guys. I was a bit impatient so went ahead and did
as you said, set the old drive with op system on to slave, the old D:
was already slave, then installed them one by one. Got the files I
wanted transferred over and job done. Thanks again for the input.
 
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