Advice needed-Gifting my old computer, but I want to retain my data.

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flagyl

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Mar 11, 2014
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Hi all.

I have a question that I am hoping you guys can help me with.

I have a desktop PC. It is an i7 X970 clocked at 3.33 GHz, 12 GB of RAM, with an nVida 570 GTX, running Win 7 Pro 64 bit. It also has a 1.3 TB HDD, with about 350 GB free. I purchased it from CyberPower PC in 2011.

My question is this: I would like to give this PC to my parents as I relocate; I will buy the new PC when I get to my new home. What is the more efficient course of action to do this?

Should I 1)take the HDD with me and get them a new HDD and have them install Win 7 on it (they are NOT computer literate)? If I do this, I then envision a problem when I get my new PC after I relocate, with removing the data and programs from the old HDD to the new one (since I have over 1 TB of programs and data on it.) I am also worried that having a slave drive with Win 7 on it will cause conflicts when I connect it to my new PC with Win 8.1 on it.

or

2)I leave the HDD and put my old programs and data onto a new HDD destined for my new PC. My question then becomes this-is there an easy way to remove Win 7 from the drive that won't leave it "corrupted", for lack of a better term, so that the HDD just contains the programs and the data and not the old OS?

Is there a better way to do this than the two options that I have outlined above?

Thanks in advance to everyone.
 
Solution
rgd1101
buy a new hdd, clone your old hdd to the new hdd. make sure it got everything, then delete your personal files from the old hdd.

take the new hdd with you, then when you get new pc. copy your files to the new computer, format the new hdd. use it as a backup or data storage.

You can't copy programs, you will need to reinstall on your new windows 8 system.
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rgd1101

rgd1101

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buy a new hdd, clone your old hdd to the new hdd. make sure it got everything, then delete your personal files from the old hdd.

take the new hdd with you, then when you get new pc. copy your files to the new computer, format the new hdd. use it as a backup or data storage.

You can't copy programs, you will need to reinstall on your new windows 8 system.
 
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flagyl

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Mar 11, 2014
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Thank you for taking the time, rgd. I did not know I couldn't copy programs over from one HDD to another.

Is there a cloning program that you can recommend? at about 1TB, how long would you guess the cloning would take?

Thanks again for the response.

 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Ideally, what you should do is simply copy all your personal data (not 'programs') to an external.
Then wipe and reinstall OS and applications fresh on the donor PC.

Once you get/build your new PC, install the OS and applications. Then copy your personal data over.

Your old HDD with the current Windows install would be very problematic if put in a new PC. It probably won't even boot.
And as the parents are apparently not puter literate, you can't just leave them with a box and no HDD/OS.

Save your stuff, set them up with a fully functioning box, and proceed on.
 
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flagyl

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Mar 11, 2014
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Thank you USAFRet (and thank you for your service).

I did forget to mention that I was going to put Win 7 back on the PC for them.

So opposed to the good advice that rgd gave me regarding cloning the drive, you would advocate simply just a "copy and paste" approach to moving my data from an old drive to a new drive?

Once again, thank you both for responding. I appreciate it.
 
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