mikeee69

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Dec 30, 2007
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My Psu on my old computer crapped out and I just ordered new parts for a nice new q6600. The only thing I have a problem with is im gonna reuse my old seagate 120 gig hdd. It has alot of info on it games etc and its running windows xp pro. How would I go about getting it to run on my new system? Would I have to reinstall windows again? I wouldnt mind formatting it but theres info and programs I need?
 

g-paw

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There are 2 schools of thought as to whether or not to reinstall Windows on a new mobo, I'm of the school that thinks it's best. If you need to get data off it, delete the drivers before uninstalling it and then reinstall them once it's in the new machine, could do a Windows repair off the CD as well but for just copying data shouldn't be necessary. Boot up, backup your data, and then reinstall Windows with a full format. If you have a 2nd drive, disconnect it before installing Windows and reconnect once Windows is installed
 

technology-sponge

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Oct 28, 2006
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Well as g-paw said, there are 2 ways to go about it.

1) A clean install is best, gives you 100% chance of stability etc etc. Also great for cleaning out all the crap that accumulates over time.

2)You can try just sticking in the hard disk to the new pc. However, windows will hang, as it won't recognise the new hardware, especially the storage controller if you have it set to RAID or AHCI mode.

The easiest way to fix:
1)Connect up your hard disk to the first hdd port on your PC (Master if IDE)
2)Set you PC to boot from CD-ROM in the BIOS
3)Load up the window setup
4)It will complain that a version of windows was detected etc etc. Select repair
5)Reboot after setup is complete
6)Once windows starts, it will re-detect most of the hardware - the repair resets all drivers to default/removes them.
NB - the repair can also reset some programs such as IE7, WMP11 and so on, that don;t come default with XP SP2.

Hope thay helps you.
 
I'd do this:

1. Build ya new puter with new HD, leave old HD on the table.
2. Install Windows to a 16 GB partition and leave rest unformated.
3. Shut off machine and install old 120 Gigger.
4. Reboot.....windows will detect it and call it D.
5. Change ya optical drive to Z to get that outta the way.
6. Use Disk manager to create whatever new partitions ya want on ya new drive. I like to have games close to C:\ so that would be a E:\Games followed by F:\Programs and say G:\Data or whatever you like / want.
7. Download the free Powerdesk utility from the V-Comm website. It will make next part a lot easier. It has a two pane Explorer interface making copy / paste from one drive to the other very easy. Install it to F:\V-Comm\PowerDesk.
8. Open PD and set it up to show "details and two panes horizontal". Set it to show your old HD on the top and the new hard drive F:\ on the bottom.
9. Copy each program folder from D:\ProgramFiles\[program name] to F:\Program name].
10. Copy each game you have from D:\ProgramFiles\[game name] to E:\[Game Name]
11. Copy all ya data from wherever it was on D:\ to G:\ using the same folder names as before.
12. The above steps 9 and 10 bring in all ya saved games and custom program files onto the new partitions. You still have to install over them to set up the registry links. So install each game over itself on E:\ ..... and each program over itself on F:\
13. Try all ya games and all ya programs and make sure they work.
14. Check D for any worthwhile stuff that's left over.
15. If all is OK, format D as 16 GB or so FAT32 partition...leave rest empty for now
17. Go into windows virtual memory and eliminate swap file on C:\ and create new one at about 2 x RAM on D:\ and reboot.
18. Create folder on D:\ called "Temp". Go into Windows system / environment variables and move the TMP and TEMP locations to D:\Temp.
19. Reboot.
20. Figure out what ya wanna do with the rest of ya 120 Gig drive. Can set up partitions for media files (i-tunes) or backups. Create partition(s) for those and you set.

Your system will now be much faster with swap (page) file on 2nd drive. You also will have a much easier time backing stuff up and replacing HD's in the future as you can copy entire partitiosn w/o worrying what's on them.