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| Thread ID: 76911 | 2007-02-20 07:13:00 | Can i use my old HDD in a new rig without reformatting? | motorbyclist (188) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 526103 | 2007-02-20 07:13:00 | In short, i'm building my new machine tonight/this weekend, and was hoping to use my old hard disk. would i be right in assuming just putting it in the new machine and booting would not go down well with windows xp pro sp2? new parts are mobo, cpu, ram, dvd drive. while video card, wireless card, hardrive, floppy drive, and hard disk are from old machine. if i were to 'repair' with the windows cd, would it allow me to keep all my files/installed programs? basically i just want to wipe the slate clean as far as hardware goes. i really cannot be bothered reinstalling and reupdating windows and transferring all my files and reinstalling/repatching all my programs/games. any way around it? afterthought: could i just replace all the drivers in safe mode? |
motorbyclist (188) | ||
| 526104 | 2007-02-20 07:21:00 | Before you remove it uninstall all the critical motherboard and card hardware from device manager, such as IDE drivers, video etc just before the final power off. XP will throw a spaz and need reactivating, so I hope it's not OEM or it will not reactivate. Then do a repair install on the new hardware. But it is NOT the recipe for a reliable install, any time you save now will usually be repaid many times over later when trying to get it to run reliably. And whatever you do, back up the data you need to keep. I would not do it. |
godfather (25) | ||
| 526105 | 2007-02-20 07:22:00 | A repair should work. Thats if you're going to use the old hdd as the main hdd. BUT, if you're using the new hdd for XP, just connect the old one as a slave. Or connect the new hdd up and use that as a slave. And then all u have to do is reactivate windows. |
Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
| 526106 | 2007-02-20 07:38:00 | A repair should work. Thats if you're going to use the old hdd as the main hdd. BUT, if you're using the new hdd for XP, just connect the old one as a slave. Or connect the new hdd up and use that as a slave. And then all u have to do is reactivate windows. On reading the post motorbyclist does not appear to have a NEW hard drive. If I was doing it I would backup or copy all documents, pictures, downloads, favourites, bookmarks, emails to another media. Could install the new DVD drive if CD/DVD WRITER first and copy/backup to that before adding the new hardware. |
Sweep (90) | ||
| 526107 | 2007-02-20 10:39:00 | correct i did not buy a new hard drive for this machine... well i was going to back everything up anyway, but not having to reinstall everything would be nice. so not stable you reckon? isn't there some way to keep/transfer all your settings without a new hard disk.... argh just getting firefox alone back to where i have it will be a mission, let alone windows with my themes and dual monitors (which was a mission to get working correctly, windows was useless and doesn't like nvidia managing it, creating much frustration when i boot without one of my monitors and then boot with both again, but that's a different story) |
motorbyclist (188) | ||
| 526108 | 2007-02-20 10:42:00 | A repair should work . Thats if you're going to use the old hdd as the main hdd . BUT, if you're using the new hdd for XP, just connect the old one as a slave . Or connect the new hdd up and use that as a slave . And then all u have to do is reactivate windows . oh, and the ONE harddrive is sata, so slave/master is automatically managed (or doesn't exist, don't quote me on that) i'm pretty sure it's purely a driver issue, but i dont want to see the registry throwing a spaz (definetly resulting in the forewarned unstable system) . that's why i'm asking:o |
motorbyclist (188) | ||
| 526109 | 2007-02-20 10:47:00 | just getting firefox alone back to where i have it will be a mission, let alone windows with my themes and dual monitors (which was a mission to get working correctly, windows was useless and doesn't like nvidia managing it, creating much frustration when i boot without one of my monitors and then boot with both again, but that's a different story)Welcome to the world! ;) Let us know how you get on. |
Greg (193) | ||
| 526110 | 2007-02-20 20:40:00 | just getting firefox alone back to where i have it will be a mission Don't know whether Firefox can do the same but with Opera you can copy your profile over and everything will be exactly as you had it before. No need to set up anything. Done it heaps of times. |
FoxyMX (5) | ||
| 526111 | 2007-02-20 21:14:00 | That does indeed work with firefox. Just copy your profile folder, and when you are done installing firefox on your new setup run the firefox profile manager and point it at your old profile folder. | Erayd (23) | ||
| 526112 | 2007-02-20 23:07:00 | will it keep all my addons and themes too? | motorbyclist (188) | ||
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