Move old HDD to new PC

[simmy]

Hi All

I have seen a similar numbers of posts, but not quite right for my query.

I have a 4 years old PC, which was running Vista, but I upgraded it to Windows 7.

I am getting a new PC in a few weeks time and wanted to know if I could :

a) Add the old HDD to new PC as a second drive and play all the games on old HDD via OS of new PC, or will I need to re-install all games on new PC?

b) Create a dual boot system, so that I can choose which OS to run on and play games via old HDD.

c) Use a program called Laplink PCMover and move my games from my old HDD to new PC, or does this program not do this?

d) Any other suggestions the community has of making this work.

Thanks.



Simmy

 

[alvine]

you will have to install games/programs again on the new system
to dual boot install the old os on the second drive and then install windows 7 on the new drive

also you cant plug the old hard drive to the new build and expect it to work, your old hard drive has drivers for your old motherboard and it will make windows conflict when trying to boot the os

 

[psaus]

^ agreed.

LaplinkPC mover does proclaim to do what you're saying. In my experience, it rarely works for apps. Moves pics and other "data", but doesn't do well on apps. If you haven't bought it, don't buy it. Waste of money IMO

 

[simmy]

Thanks for the info.

I would have thought that some bright spark would have come up with a way round this, or to sorted things out in the future, I remember having to do this 4 years ago when I get rid of my old, old computer.

Oh well back to hours of re-installation!

 

[simmy]

What about putting the game files into a shared network and share this via the router with my new PC, as I am not actually getting rid of the old PC as this will be used by my daughter.

Would this work, and how is best to do it.

Thanks for your help.

 

[psaus]

You can share files between the two systems. But you're not going to be able to share "apps". There have been strides to make apps more "containerized" but it's not at the state where you can just copy and paste them or share them... yet.

I have found that certain games and certain apps will execute without reinstallation. Very rarely this happens without flaw. Most of the time though there is a glitch that forces me to just do a reinstall.

FWIW, I don't know how old your daughter is or how computer savvy she is, but I learned the hard way not to trust data on my children's systems. Things "mysteriously" break and disappear. But if you mean to just set the systems up with a share for a temporary harvest of files, that is probably a lot less headache than pulling a drive out of the case and all that.

 

[simmy]

How about something over a VCN Network or using a goto my pc service or even Citrix?

I ask because I am able to access my works programs over a Citrix connection from home, although those programs have not originally been installed on my home PC.

Will this not be to same?

Thanks for your help with this.

 

[psaus]

Apples and oranges. Citrix is a specialized solution that hosts applications. The server side is kind of complex, but I'll simplify it by saying "the apps are installed on the server, and the video-output of these apps are pushed to your home PC". Setting up Citrix at home would be difficult and expensive.
Go to my PC/Teamviewer/Logme in, could band-aid the situation. They could allow you access to the apps that are on your older system. However game type applications are going to suffer dramatically, because the video throughput is way too slow. Most of the above mentioned are either free or have a free trial, install and you'll immediately see what I mean.
They do have their place and uses, but games is not one of them. You might find that other apps which are not video intensive are good enough for this band-aid.

 

[simmy]

I thought that I should provide you with an update. But first to go back, I originally partitioned my old C drive into a C: and a J: drive. The J: drive started to fill when more games were added to it, I copied and pasted some of the games to an external hard drive.

Having received the new computer, I used Windows Easy Tranfer to transfer various settings fromm my old PC to my new PC. It must have also brought over some system files, as when I restarted my computer and attached the external, I was still able to play the games via the external hard drive on the new PC, the save files for each game had to be located seperately.

I then thought if I transfer all of the games files on my old J: drive to the external hard drive and then attach the external to the new PC and copy them over, the old games work and they did!!! No reinstalling, straight in play the game and straight out again.

Some games had a few glitches as they were very old and had not been used for many years, but all of the other more recent games worked without a hitch.

I therefore suggest that this should be the way forward, if you want to retain your app files.

What do you think?

 

[psaus]

This is very unusual. As I said before I have managed to get this to work with some games/apps, but they tended to be very simple and/or DOS-era games/apps, and it only worked a couple times.

Your results aren't typical. None the less, if it worked for you, can't argue with results.
If you wouldn't mind, can you list a handful of the games that worked and maybe a couple that had glitches? Just so we can get an idea of what could potentially work for others?

 

[simmy]

I too was somewhat shocked at the result, but the to name a couple of games I transferred were Bulletstorm, MW3, Driver, LA Noire and some older games such as Bejeweled 3 and Twist, Build a Lot, Sim City 4 (the older games had to be started by using run by administrator).

The games that did not work were mainly older games such as GTA San Andreas, Cricket Coach 2010 and Bioshock 1, these started as if they were going to run and then just did not load up or asked for the disk, which I have, so I have now in the majority got all of my games to work on my new PC.

I do think it is all due to the Windows 7 Easy Transfer, perhaps if someone has recently built a PC, and they were going to use Windows 7 Easy Transfer to transfer settings to new PC, then they should also try to see if this was a one off and I have been very lucky.

Regards.

 

[jrwizbang]

Just re-install everything. There will be a lot of issues other wise. There will be program files missing, important .dll files corrupted, registry entries/files gone/corrupted. It just turns into a mess when you try to do what you are trying to do. It may seem to work and sometimes it actually does, but if it were me, I would just make images of my games and do a complete re-install. Up to you though.