Computer Upgrade - Tech Question

[Lorelei]

I am getting an upgrade to my computers - everything but the hard drive.....

My brother tells me that I can take the hard drive out of my old set up and plug it in to the new and I should be ok...

My boyfriend tells me to back up the hard drive, wipe it, then reset it up on the new system.....

Who's advice should I follow?

[The Laughing Man]

My boyfriend tells me to back up the hard drive, wipe it, then reset it up on the new system.....

fresher is better.... just save any documents or files you want to keep, and load everything (programs) fresh and clean. TIP: if your hard drive is that old, it will slow down the new system, they are so cheap now I would recommend you get a new SATA drive, and plug your old hard drive in as a secondary drive to use for your documents and file storage and such, after you scan and clean it for viruses and the like.

[High Lord Tolkien]

Depends on the Operating system.
If it's still Windows 98 or ME or even 2000 then you'll be ok.
But after it boots up it's going to ask for the divers to literally everything that is new ie: motherboard, NIC card, soundcard, dvd drive.....
So have all the CD's/floppies that come with the new stuff handy.
Plus the original operating system CD because your existing Windows setup is going to be looking for files as well.

I've done this loads of times.
If you have all the cd's and floppys that Windows is going to ask for you'll be all set.
It's a pain but better than starting from scratch if you're happy with the way your PC is setup now.

Now if it's XP then it gets tricky, imo.
Sometimes XP doesn't have a problem going from one PC to the next.
Usually it does and just won't boot up at all.
Maybe someone else here has a trick around that but I don't know it.

There is one other idea you might want to try that I actually recommned where you're getting everything new.

Most people that hate the "slowness" of thier PC don't realize that 9 times out of 10 it's actually the hard drive that is dying.

Just getting a new hard drive sometimes speeds things up too.

Personally I'd get everything new and put your old hard drive in the case as a "spare".
That way you'll have a brand spanking new PC with all the newest stuff already loaded right out of the box and ready to go with all your old stuff also there.
C: would be your new drive
D:would be all your old crap like documents, pics, zips.....
You'd have to reinstall all the programs you like to use but the DATA from your old one would still be there.

[Lorelei]

Thanks for the tips....here is some further information

The hard drive is less than 1 year old....my really old one died.... and I am running Windows XP...

[Nav]

With XP you are likely to run into problems with Windows Activation Protocol on the OS on the old HDD. If you have the Windows XP CD to hand, you can boot up from that and perform a repair install. A step-by-step guide for doing that can be found here

If you don't still have the CD, you can try to work around WAP but it's tricky and time-consuming. Bascially, every time you boot up your OS it scans the hardware connected to it and takes note of any changes. I think there are 12 'points' to WAP and if more than 6 of them are changed in one go, you will have to perform a repair install and/or reactivate Windows. The motherboard itself account for about 5 points, so changing it can be difficult (in fact, if you're moving to a board with a different processor and an onboard modem, you're guaranteed to have to reactivate).

Of course if you're wiping it anyway, then you can just back up your documents and reinstall the OS from scratch, but it is possible to transfer the drive without losing the data.

[Lorelei]

I am getting a new hard drive as a primary and making my old one a secondary....this way I have room to put my CD collection on one of them.

[Nav]

Good plan, I bought a 40gb hard drive and moved all my mp3s to it to save space. As my iPod's only a 20gb one, i've also backed up my important fiels there too. I figure the 40gb is less likely to fail than the 120gb one.

[Lorelei]

Upgrade complete! I haven't started putting my music on it yet, but have been playing huge amounts of Dark Age of Camelot....I can finally run through Tir na Nog without lag...yipee!!!!!