How do I connect my old HDD's and SSD to my new computer.

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ProkyProkyProky

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My old PC just imploded a few weeks ago. It was a purchased Zoostorm i5 running Windows 10 Home 64 bit. The boot drive was a 256gb SSD and it had two further HDD's with all my data on, a 2tb and a 3tb.

When my old computer died it wouldn't even get to the BIOS to be able to do anything at all, so I assumed it was either the motherboard, the power or maybe even the chip itself had fried. Anyway, that doesn't matter anymore, its dead and I now have a brand new Dell Optiplex XE2 running Windows 10 Pro 64 bit, with just one 256GB SSD attached (not my old one).

So, it's all updated and lovely and I'm wanting to attach my old SSD and HDD's as additional drives and access my old data.

Now, I am NOT a really technical person when it comes to opening up a PC but I do remember when I bought the other drives brand new that it was simply plug and play, I put them in and they just worked. So ..... I tried to do the same this time, putting the old SSD and the old HDD (one at a time) in the new PC, but regardless of which one I hooked up when I turned on the new PC it just froze at the initial Dell splash screen and stopped. Didn't even get to the BIOS.

Now I have read somewhere on this forum that a new motherboard won't just accept a new hard drive (although don't understand why as I'm sure it did the first time when they were brand new) from an old computer, but my question is this :-

How CAN I use my old hard drives on my new machine without having to wipe them?!?!

I cannot use my old machine to connect up to take backups from the drives as it is dead as a dodo and I can't connect to the new PC as it won't accept them.

If someone could explain what I should do in nice easy steps, almost as if you were explaining to a small child or someone with a semi-serious head-injury that would be absolutely fantastic and much appreciated .......

Other thngs that may be relevant is my new PC didn't come with a Windows 10 cd/dvd for booting from, I have however made a Dell Recovery USB if that's going to help.

Most of my data IS in the cloud, like all my photos, but the video camera stuff wasn't owing to size, so I'm HOPING that I can access the info on these drives without having to wipe.

Thanks for any advice!
 
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Looks like my solution worked ........... or rather ..... is working, as I'm in the process now and no issues have arisen.

So, as mentioned above, if I tried to mount my old hard drives internally then the machine just point-blank refused to do anything when I turned it on, not even BIOS. It didn't seem to matter that my old drives were also on a Windows 10 machine, it just wouldn't accept them.

So after a bit of mooching around on the net I heard people talking about 'external enclosures' which I'd never heard of. I'm not an IT person, I just like computers that's all. These seemed to be able to connect your old hard drives to the PC through USB, regardless of the fact they have been 'paired' to another PC or not. Or so it seemed...
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Paperdoc

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The manuals for Dell Optiplex XE2 systems show there are four models in two sizes - Mini-Tower and Compact cases. The Mini-Tower version says it has space for mounting two SATA 3½" HDD's, whereas the Compact cases seem to have only one such space. So I would hope you can physically fit your old HDD into your new machine, and also the old (second) SSD. But that does leave open the question of how many SATA data ports are available on your mobo - I could not find that in the manual. IF there are at least three ports (one already in use for the SSD included with that new machine), you might still find that one of the SATA mounting slots is already "full" with that SSD. If so, you might find that a different kind of mounting adapter would be useful. SSD sizes typically are smaller and thinner than HDD's, so to mount an SSD in a 3½" HDD slot you need an adapter mounting bracket. You can get some designs of those that allow you to mount TWO SSD's in one bracket in a sort of stacked arrangement.

OK, so maybe that gets you physical mounting and ports to connect to. I hope also you already have enough SATA power output connectors from the PSU to allow three SATA devices. You still have the problem that the machine fails to boot when either of the old devices is connected. Here are some hints to try to fix that.

I suspect the root of the problem is that, when you add one or more of these older devices to your system and try to boot, the BIOS re-adjusts itself to try to use that newly-added old device as the boot device. Well, it cannot do that because those items do not have the right customized version of Windows. The only correct Windows you have is on the new SSD. So you will need to go into BIOS Setup and set its Boot Priority yourself.

So how to get in there? With BOTH of the older devices added in, boot the machine. But immediately hold down the "F2" key. That is the key that re-directs the booting process to enter BIOS Setup instead. I say hold it down because it's hard to know when to just "tap" the key. If you hold it down, after a short time of running its POST process the system should halt on the opening screen of Setup. From there you need to use menus to find the place where you can specify the Boot Sequence. In that place specify the NEW SSD that came with your new system as the first boot device, and then NO other devices to use. After making your changes, find the way to get to the Exit menus and remember to SAVE and EXIT so your changes are saved. This should cause your system to reboot and succeed this time, since it will try only to boot from the NEW SSD that does have the correct Win 10 OS on it.
 
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ProkyProkyProky

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Thanks for your reply Grandmaster.

As mentioned above if I connect any of the old hard drives it doesn't even get to the BIOS setup so I can't press F2, it just hangs immediately at the Dell splash screen.

I did a bit of research on the web last night and came up with this plan :-

Buy a couple of external SATA enclosures so I can connect the 2tb and 3tb drives through USB to my new computer.

Copy everything from the 2tb to the 3tb (there should be plenty of space).

Then format the 2tb which would hopefully then mean I can attach it internally.

Then copy everything from the external 3tb to the internal 2tb.

Then format the 3tb then mount internally also.

Would that work?
 
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ProkyProkyProky

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Apr 9, 2017
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Looks like my solution worked ........... or rather ..... is working, as I'm in the process now and no issues have arisen.

So, as mentioned above, if I tried to mount my old hard drives internally then the machine just point-blank refused to do anything when I turned it on, not even BIOS. It didn't seem to matter that my old drives were also on a Windows 10 machine, it just wouldn't accept them.

So after a bit of mooching around on the net I heard people talking about 'external enclosures' which I'd never heard of. I'm not an IT person, I just like computers that's all. These seemed to be able to connect your old hard drives to the PC through USB, regardless of the fact they have been 'paired' to another PC or not. Or so it seemed anyway, I couldn't get 100% confirmation of that, but on the basis they were about £20 to buy I went ahead and bought a couple, as I needed to be able to copy from one to the other through USB. Here's the ones I bought :-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01N2H2PN3/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This particular model, not the cheapest, seemed to take both 2.5 inch and 3.5 inch SATA and SSD drives which I had so seemed ideal. When they arrived I stuck my old drives in, connected the USB and boooom, both drives appeared immediately. Now I could copy from one to the other.

When that was done I could then Format the empty one (I did the long format which took hoooooours but supposed to be best way) then opened the PC up and mounted the hard rive internally, fired up the PC again and no problems at all. Started as normal and the old drive was now showing as a new hard drive.

As I had all my data already on OneDrive and backed up with Backblaze I tried to call all the new hard drives the same drive letter and file locations too so I needed to re-assign the drive letter Windows had given it but that is easy through the Disk Management program.

I am currently formatting the 2nd SATA drive which no doubt will take hours also, but after that I will mount to the mother board and I will be back to where I was with my old PC.

Don't think my new PC will be able to take the SSD from the old PC as it already has its own new SSD and my two old SATA's attached so probably out of motherboard power connections, but if so I will be able to use one of the external enclosures to attach to one of the USB3 connectors at the back of the PC as an additional storage drive for something.

Anyway, hope this helps someone else who may have the same problem. The summary is this - if your old machine dies you CAN take out your old drives and use them on a new PC, but you may have to do the above first.

And as a last piece of advice, I always had my data backed up to multiple places so this was never about lost data, but that said PLEASE do remember to back-up your data, if you lose photos and personal documents from a computer crash then you will never get them back and no amount of money can replace that. I use Backblaze which is limitless cloud storage for US$5 per month, get yourself some sort of external hard rive you can save to periodically and if you have OneDrive space use that too. I got 1TB of OneDrive cloud space just through having Office 365 which was about US$90 a year, worth every penny.

Good luck!
 
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