Will this work?

[Black wallnut]

Well it is time to upgrade our home network. Thanks to a good tax return we have been able to purchase a laptop for me and a nettop PC for the mrs. leaving the old desk top available for our kids to use. The problem is the desktop needs to be cleaned nuked and a fresh re-install of the OS and programs.

Can I take a hard drive out of an old PC, install it into the desk top and copy everything to it so as to not lose all my emails and other files?

(Both pc's use xp home.) If I do this how do I do it? My existing IDE cable has an extra plug.

Or would it be better to just purchase an external hard drive?

[Alex Franke]

Yeah, that should work so long as the drive works with your computer (e.g. SATA drives might not work with older computers). I'd pick a hard drive you know has nothing valuable on it, and use that for the OS as your primary drive. Then install the original drive as a secondary drive and poke around on it until you find all the files you need to move over.

Most applications will store files under your user directory (something like C:\windows\users\[username]) but some still store stuff in their installation directory or other places, so take you time.

[jdon]

Caveat: I'm not a computer expert by any means, but am reasonably handy with PC hardware.

You can copy the entire contents of one hard drive onto another drive very easily- there are many programs available to clone drives- I've used Acronis True Image, which is easy to use and gets good reviews, and is free for download. Generally, the second drive must have a storage capacity at least as large as the original. One the clone is made, you just remove the old drive and put in the new one in its place (presumably as the primary ("C:") drive).

Ii depends on which of your two hard drives is "better" (larger, faster a/o newer-(perhaps more reliable)). That's the one you want as your primary ("C:") drive. The other can be used within the computer for additional storage capacity- including as a backup of critical files from the primary drive. The odds of both drives going belly up simultaneously is remote. If the drive you already have is better, keep it as such.

The only problem is that the new drive is an exact copy- warts and all- of the original, so you still need to nuke and reinstall, if that's what you have to do! One option is to copy essential files onto the second drive, install a clean version of XP on the first drive, then copy back your essential files back. Someone with more expertise might have better ideas. Good luck!

[LCHIEN]

that should work OK.
don't forget to change the jumper of the second drive to slave if its set to master (and the first drive is master).

Leave both drives on and use the second one as a backup with an automatic copy program.

[Kristofor]

The answer is that yes it will work. And, yes you should buy an external, if you plan to keep using it for backup after the wipe/reinstall...

External 1TB drives are available for under $100 and could be moved between all 3 machines at will (so when the PC dies and the kids need their report for school in the morning you don't need to rebuild/reload their PC on short notice, just attach the backup drive to the laptop and grab the file).

Either way, after you backup the data be very careful to choose the right drive when you reload the OS if you still have the backup attached at that time.

[Black wallnut]

Tried it and the old hard drive is less than half as big as the existing HDD in the desk top. Based solely on available space v used space the really old one is not physically (like that is really a true description) capable to hold everything. Guess I'll just have to go buy an external. Oh well I really do need one anyway for archive and back-up.

[rjwaldren]

You might want to look into the "File and Settings Transfer" wizard in XP. It does a good job of moving profiles from one machine to another and you have a choice of do it it over the network, another harddrive or using CD/DVD's. I've only used it personally a few times but the users were happy with the results. Email accounts and user preferences were perfect on the new machine. I prefer configuring clean installs but for most users this is just the ticket.

[cgallery]

Can't you just copy your important files over the network to your new notebook?

[crokett]

I would spring for a new external USB drive if budget allows. For 150ish bucks you can get something that includes backup SW. For 200ish you can get one that attaches to your network.

A cheaper option is to buy a drive, an enclosure and use something free like Syncback to back up files to it.

[Black wallnut]

I got an external drive. Used Acronis to back up to it. Reinstalled the OS in the desktop as well as FF and TB.

Doing things over the network did not appear to be an option as the laptop is Win7 and the other two are XP home.

Sad to say but I may have lost data anyway; that is to say I can not seem to find my profile files for TB in the backup. I'll look more later...... with all the space the back-up take up they have to be there!

[crokett]

I dunno about XP Home, but my XP Pro machines can access my Win 7 machine here at home just fine.