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Accessing an old hard drive on a new computer

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  • Computers
  • Storage
  • Hard Drives
  • Motherboards
Last response: in Storage
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August 29, 2014 8:24:16 AM

I am upgrading most of the major components in my computer soon (motherboard, cpu, memory, graphics card), and while I'm at it I want to do a new install of Windows 7 on a new hard drive. The old hard drive seems to be okay, but it's only a matter of time before it fails anyway.

After I've installed Windows, if I plug the old drive into my motherboard, my understanding is that I should have no problem getting into most of the files stored on it (in C:\Whatever). I'm not planning to boot from it or use its installation of Windows to run the new computer. If I try to access the stuff in the Users folder (desktop, documents, etc.), though, will that all be somehow restricted, or are those just regular folders and files if I'm not using the instance of Windows where they were originally saved and protected?

I tried searching for this, but most of what I found related to the process of physically getting an old hard drive hooked up in a new PC. If anyone can let me know if this will work, I'd appreciate it. It could save me a lot of time creating an extra backup that I may not need, heh.

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a c 360 G Storage
a c 158 V Motherboard
August 29, 2014 8:40:49 AM

The only issue you should have is "access denied" when you try to access any folders or files in the User folders on the old hard drive because your new Windows installation thinks you are trying to access someone else's data.

You can overcome that by changing the permissions in the folder properties:
http://www.blogsdna.com/2159/how-to-take-ownership-gran...
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August 29, 2014 9:02:23 AM

Awesome, thanks for the answer :) 
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August 29, 2014 9:36:27 AM

Hope this Helps :to use an old drive ,remove documents etc/data-do not copy Windows - to a USB Flash Drive then use any manufacturer's software like MaxBlast .Seagate Tools etc to erase data on the drive or zerofill better still ;-quick erase will store data in the drive , just compresses it as any virus intrusion has the potential to affect stability -do not do any repairs to the Master Boot Record though and connect it to the fresh Windows pc as extra storage. Use a SSD drive 120-128GB for the OS and a HDD prices are cheap for 1 TB -64MB Catche for Downloading
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