Two hard drives

[viclaw]

Hello,

I have two hard drives on my Vista laptop. One has the OS on and all my other stuff. The other one is empty.

If I opened the laptop how would i know which is the empty one and which isn't?

I want to move the hard drive to my new laptop which is Windows 7 but my old laptop is Vista. Is this possible? Or would I have to format it?

Thanks

Vic

 

[Ubrales]

The hard drives do not care whether they have Vista, data files, music, etc. - In order to transfer one drive from one computer to another, make sure that the drives are compatible; either IDE to IDE or SATA to SATA. IDE hard drives will not fit SATA connectors and vice versa. This information regarding IDE or SATA in your computer will be displayed in your computer specs. - And, the manual will clearly explain which drive is the main OS drive, the capacity, and which drive is the auxiliary drive.

After you save all the files on the drive that you are transferring, it is best to format it NTFS, and then install it into the new computer.

 

[k1114]

There are very few laptops that have two hdds. Vista by default creates a 10gb partition for backup. If it is 10gb than what you are seeing is a partition in 1 hdd and windows will show it as 2 drives.

Why are you not going to use the hdd that came with the new laptop?

 

[viclaw]

Hi,

I'm pretty sure it's two drives cos they're 250GB each. I could be wrong.

HDD for new laptop is fine. It's just that I need more space and since the old laptop isn't being used to its full potential I thought I'd take it.

Thanks

 

[k1114]

What model laptop are both of the laptops, just curious. I find it weird that a new laptop has a smaller hdd than an older one.

 

[viclaw]

Hello,

They are Acer 5735 and eMachines E640 (Triple core version). The Acer one is the one I think has two hard drives.

Thanks

Vic

 

[k1114]

As far as I can see, both of those have 1 hdd. Both are sata so thats good.