Old hard drive into a new PC?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
J

JBURNS489

Reputable
Jul 29, 2015
236
1
4,710
I own a small business, and had a power surge today that seemingly fried a PSU on one of two computers used as cash registers. I own the hardware, but license the software, and hence only have technical support on software. Luckily, I read Tom's Hardware a lot and have built my own gaming pc, but I have never tried anything like this before.
Since the computer that fried is a bit old, I decided to just build a new one. I have already ordered all the parts, but I wanted a little advice on installing the old hard drive with windows 7 into a new PC. I know driver issues are going to be the main thing, but how hard is it really? My main goal is minimal down time, and my last resort is wiping it somehow and just having my tech support reinstall and set up everything. Does anyone have any experience installing a hard drive from one computer into a completely new one?
 
Solution
S
Alright so before I go to bed let me help so more (don't for get to up vote lol). First things first, if you have to reinstall the software then you might as well reinstall the operating system (hopefully you have an image that you can restore!).

So to wipe the hard drive your going to want to get a friends computer preferably windows. Shut the computer down, open the computer door, look for a sata cable and power, and then plug the drive in. Turn the computer back on, search for cmd in the windows tab (bottom left corner), and open up the command prompt.

Next type in diskpart (going to have to run in administrative mode), and then type list disk. This should now give you a list of drives, hopefully not to many. Depending on the...
Sort by date Sort by votes
S

StoneyCashew

Commendable
Jul 19, 2016
36
0
1,560
Honestly I just built a little workstation server and took the media drive out of my main rig and just plugged it into the computer (while it was shut off) and it loaded the drive. This is if it only had content (no operating system or specialized software). I can't tell from the passage if the drive was the main drive for the computer or it if it was just a storage drive. Now if it wasn't a storage drive then best bet is that your going to have to reinstall everything especially if it was an operating system so that it can pick up on all the new drivers and limit the bugs / issues. You could try plugging it in and try booting to the drive, and there may be a windows feature that automatically updates the hardware drivers, but these are the two options that I could see happening. Good luck on your endeavors!
 
Upvote 1 Downvote
J

JBURNS489

Reputable
Jul 29, 2015
236
1
4,710
It was the main OS system hard drive :( They are just workstations. The software is going to be have to be reconfigured no matter what most likely, but I am most concerned if Windows itself would actually boot. If it won't boot, is it possible to somehow wipe that hard drive and re-partition and re install windows, without booting? Or maybe I am better off just eating the whole cost of a brand new PC and buying a new hard drive lol
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
S

StoneyCashew

Commendable
Jul 19, 2016
36
0
1,560
Alright so before I go to bed let me help so more (don't for get to up vote lol). First things first, if you have to reinstall the software then you might as well reinstall the operating system (hopefully you have an image that you can restore!).

So to wipe the hard drive your going to want to get a friends computer preferably windows. Shut the computer down, open the computer door, look for a sata cable and power, and then plug the drive in. Turn the computer back on, search for cmd in the windows tab (bottom left corner), and open up the command prompt.

Next type in diskpart (going to have to run in administrative mode), and then type list disk. This should now give you a list of drives, hopefully not to many. Depending on the number of drives figure out which one is yours... Look at the size of your drive and theirs to distinguish which is which. The total is in bytes not gigabytes so 931 bytes equals 1 terabyte.

Once you have figured the drive out type in select disk # (1, 2, 3, or 4, only one number). Once it is selected type clean disk and this will clean your hard drive~! Now once this is done there is no going back. Plug the drive in to the new computer, load the disc, turn off, and then boot to the install disc (should do this automatically). Then install! Now if there was any issues along this process then the drive is probably bad and needs to be replaced, or you typed something in wrong.

You are already eating the whole cost of the computer if you had to buy new parts already, the drive is one of the cheaper things that you don't have to really worry about. Some things to look / invest in is a UPS (no not the delivery service), it is an Uninruptable Power Supply. These have surge protection, and will keep your computers on for x amount of hours. They only cost like 100 or 200 dollars (depending on the number of watts). This will save your hardware and keep your running in the result of the failure.

I hope this helps, I know it's a lot of information but felt like you're having a worse day than myself. Sorry for any grammar mistakes (I'm tired), but if you have any further questions let me know and hopefully we can get you back up and running. Good luck on your endeavors!
 
Upvote 1 Downvote
Solution
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom