Installing Vista HDD onto Win7 Computer

HiggsPrime

Honorable
Apr 19, 2014
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10,710
Hello Reader,

Old PC specs:
CPU: Intel Celeron
RAM: 3GB Kington
GPU: NVIDIA 2000
HDD: 500GB Toshiba
PSU: 450W
OS: Vista

Other PC Specs
Phenom II X4 965BE
4GB Corsair
HD 6670 2GB
320GB
400W
Win 7 64bit

Now my first PC is stoneage now it was bought 7 years ago. time passes by so fast and look at where the technology. the price was £450 at that time now that same price you can get i5 decent PCs. Any who I want to transfer to my second Middle Age PC.

I am going to install the (intel+nvida drives, vista installed) HDD from old PC to new PC. New PC is AMD and the old one is intel, according to my understanding it will not work because of compatibility issue. ON the other hand, if i just install it, during startup process after boot menu, it will ask me to choose between Win7 or Win Vista.

Please tell me how can I make that HDD work on the new PC. Not going to change anything from the old HDD because of the important file and my company's software (which no longer available).


 
Solution
From your original:
Not going to change anything from the old HDD because of the important file and my company's software (which no longer available).

The 'files' on the drive can be copied wherever. The company specific applications almost certainly will not work. Even if the Vista OS boots in the completely different hardware. (which it won't)

From your above, you have to determine what, exactly, you want to keep from it. As said, files are no problem, and can be 'copied' via any of those 3 procedures. A USB stick is probably the easiest.

Your old applications, however, are a whole different thing.
About the only thing you will be able to do is install it as a secondary drive. It wont boot.
None of the programs installed on that drive will be of any use, they wont work now without being reinstalled again. There may be some small apps and programs that might work if launched, don't bet on it, but you can get to the data you have on it.
 
I've only gotten it to work about 10% of the time, and usually it's a slow, laggy mess as Windows defaults to using failsafe drivers because of all the different hardware. Since you're going from AMD to Intel, it's almost sure not to work.

If you wish to be able to "boot" the old Vista PC on the new Win 7 PC, then you can try converting the Vista PC into a virtual machine. You will need an external drive with more free space than your Vista PC's 500GB drive.

Create a new admin account (you can use an existing admin account, but I've had the most success with a new admin account). Login to the new account, download and install VMWare Converter on the Vista PC. Clean the computer - remove any temp files, uninstall unneeded programs, delete any movies you already have a copy of elsewhere, etc. You want to get it to take up as little disk space as possible.
https://www.vmware.com/products/converter

Plug in the external drive. Run VMWare Converter. The source will be the currently running PC. The target will be a folder on your external drive. If it asks you what format, pick the newest that works with VMWare Player. When it presents the hard drive size, shrink it a bit (or a lot if you want). Just make sure it's smaller than the 500 GB drive.

Let it do the conversion. Usually it takes about 30 min to 2 hours, so go make a sandwich, watch some TV, or take a walk. If the conversion was successful, you'll now have a virtual machine on the external HDD which is a copy of your Vista PC. You can turn off the PC, and plug the external drive into the Win 7 PC.

On the Win 7 PC, download and install VMWare Player (Virtualbox usually works too).
https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_player/6_0

Run it, and open the virtual machine on the external drive. Then turn the virtual machine on and cross your fingers. If it works, you'll see it boot to the desktop of your old PC. It'll be slow since it's running off an external drive and 4GB really isn't enough RAM for virtual machines, but at least you'll be able to access your old apps and data.

Play around with it a bit to make sure everything works. Windows will probably need to be re-activated. DO NOT DO THIS YET. Same goes for any other software that asks to be re-authorized. You're just testing to make sure everything works.

Once you're convinced everything is working, then shut down the virtual machine. Now you need to figure out a way to put it permanently on the Win 7 computer (instead of on the external HDD). Whether that's a new HDD, taking the external HDD out of the enclosure and putting it in the Win 7 computer, or moving the 500 GB drive from the Vista PC into the Win 7 PC (which is why you made sure the virtual machine's drive was smaller than the 500 GB drive). Once the drive is in place, copy the entire virtual machine folder from the external drive to the new HDD.

Once you have it up and running on a drive permanently mounted in the Win 7 PC, then you can set about re-authorizing software. Or if you're only going to use this for emergencies, just leave the software un-authorized. I don't think Vista did anything bad if it wasn't activated (Win 8 will randomly log you out every 20-30 min).
 

HiggsPrime

Honorable
Apr 19, 2014
131
0
10,710
Wow I like all the responses. Below are the process I can think of:

Process 1:
1. Install the HDD onto Phenom PC
2. Go to Disk management
3. Hopefully get access to the HDD
4. Create a new folder and copy the content onto Phenom PC HDD
5. Format and transfer it back

Process 2:
1. copy all the files to a USB
2. install onto Phenom PC
3. Format the drive
4. Install the files

Process 3:
1. Transfer all the files via Homegroup
2. Install the HDD onto Phenom PC
3. format the drive
4. copy the contents.

Tell me which process is effective and WILL NOT DELETE my files.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
From your original:
Not going to change anything from the old HDD because of the important file and my company's software (which no longer available).

The 'files' on the drive can be copied wherever. The company specific applications almost certainly will not work. Even if the Vista OS boots in the completely different hardware. (which it won't)

From your above, you have to determine what, exactly, you want to keep from it. As said, files are no problem, and can be 'copied' via any of those 3 procedures. A USB stick is probably the easiest.

Your old applications, however, are a whole different thing.
 
Solution