Old hard drive to a new pc

Salcedo9806 · Oct 29, 2016

Hi, i was wondering if i can use my old hard drive to my newly built pc, can i install windows to a new SSD and use my old hard drive and keep my old files, games in there? What do i have to delete so i can use my old hard drive to my new pc without doing a back up or reformat?

junkeymonkey · Oct 29, 2016

I do ? if I want or need something from a old drive like as old as on I had windows XP on I just hook it up open it and get what I need I got like 5 hard drives from old builds I do that with just treat then like a 2ed storage drive

only thing that could affect thing as this is ahci if your old drive was used under ide mode and your sata ports are now ahci it may not work [this is why I all way even today use ide not ahci but I don't use a ssd ?

so I cant say if you got 6 sata ports and 2 ports are set for ahci for the ssd use and you set 2 of the other 4 to ide if that will work ??

thing is ide is a compatibility mode where ahci is more like a performance mode

if your just going to wipe the old drive and use it as storage then it all don't matter just hook it up and use it

RealBeast · Oct 29, 2016

Salcedo9806 :

Yes you can do what you want. Simply detach the HDD and install Windows on the SSD with the bios in SATA AHCI mode. Then you can reattach your old drive and it will work fine.

You will, however, have to reinstall any games that are on the HDD for them to run under the new OS unless they are STEAM games, then you simply need to reinstall the STEAM application and change the game file location to where it is located on the HDD. You can access data files with no issues.

The only thing that is important is that the OS drive has the same SATA mode set as the bios, secondary drives will run fine on the same controller.

note: if you have a really old SATA 1.5 drive you may need to use a jumper on it for compatibility, but those drives are almost all gone, so very unlikely an issue.

Salcedo9806 · Oct 29, 2016

RealBeast :

Salcedo9806 :

Yes you can do what you want. Simply detach the HDD and install Windows on the SSD with the bios in SATA AHCI mode. Then you can reattach your old drive and it will work fine.

You will, however, have to reinstall any games that are on the HDD for them to run under the new OS unless they are STEAM games, then you simply need to reinstall the STEAM application and change the game file location to where it is located on the HDD. You can access data files with no issues.

The only thing that is important is that the OS drive has the same SATA mode set as the bios, secondary drives will run fine on the same controller.

note: if you have a really old SATA 1.5 drive you may need to use a jumper on it for compatibility, but those drives are almost all gone, so very unlikely an issue.

Can i just install windows in my new pc with the ssd on, and plug in the old hard drive after windows is done installing? Do i have to do anything with the old hard drive while its still in my old pc?

RealBeast · Oct 29, 2016

You do not have to do anything with your old HDD, just attach it *after* installing the OS on your new SSD.

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