Transferring hard drive between computers

rynDkt · Dec 5, 2013

I have a few years old dell xps studio that was upgraded to win 8 that is having boot issues. I was in need of a new computer for other reasons and have purchased a new tower that came pre-installed with Win 8. So I took the hard drive from the old tower and plugged it into this one - it is showing up as a hard drive - NTFS but when you click on it the drive is not accessible. Any thoughts?

Was hoping to transfer files to the new computer before downgrading the old back to win 7.

baddad · Dec 5, 2013

I'm guessing the XPS only has one drive that has the OS and data files on it and if that's the case transferring the files from the XPS to the new machine would be the way to go.

Saga Lout · Dec 5, 2013

If it shows up in Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Disk Management as a drive, it may help to change the drive letter. At the moment, you have two disks calling themselves C:

rynDkt · Dec 5, 2013

It was the main drive in the xps studio (old) and I am putting it into the secondary slot in the new xps. Shows up as drive F, but won't let me explore. Disk Management shows options to optimize or reformat. I also have a sata/usb cord, where I have powered the drive externally and tried to transfer files via the usb, still shows up as drive F: but not accessible.

baddad · Dec 5, 2013

Do a system to system transfer, if you have a network you could transfer that way.

rynDkt · Dec 5, 2013

I would-but the other system won't boot. Going to try creating a mirror of windows 8 from the new computer and using it to try to repair the old. The old system was supposed to be sufficient for windows 8, but I started having "bad pool header errors" - and could never track down the drive that was causing it. It won't boot up anymore, I can get to bios but never through to startup. I have the windows 7 disc, but had done the upgrade electronically. I should be able to make a mirror of 8 though on the new computer and try. Never simple!

hang-the-9 · Dec 5, 2013

Did you think that the reason the old system did not boot was because the drive is bad in the first place? Try the old system with a new drive.

baddad · Dec 5, 2013

That's a real possibility, do you have a Dell recovery cd?

rynDkt · Dec 5, 2013

I do, will give it a try tonight!

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Transferring hard drive between computers

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