Reusing my old hard drive and optical drive

[rickymcjohn]

Hello,
I am building my first computer and I know my questions may sound stupid but I figured I should just ask anyway. Okay, I already have an optical drive and hard drive in my computer, would I be able to just completely wipe my hard drive clean and put it into my new build? I don't need anything on it. I have no problem losing everything off of it. Would it ruin the build or would this be possible? also can i just take out the optical drive and put it into the new build?


Also tell me if my build is good or not, I don't have too much money. http://pcpartpicker.com/p/IeJ7

 

[Azn Cracker]

Yea its possible if they are both sata drives. Nothing would be wrong with the build besides the fact that the drives are old and may fail soon. Looking at your build, you still need a power supply. Also I wouldn't waste money on a crappy cpu cooler, the stock one will probably perform the same.

 

[rickymcjohn]

How do i check if they are sata drives? I'm super new to this. And the case im buying comes with a power supply.

 

[rickymcjohn]

How do i check if they are sata drives? I'm super new to this. And the case im buying comes with a power supply.

 

[Solandri]

Second post in this link has a nice pic of what the two connectors/cables look like.
http://perspectives.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=171710

If the optical drive is IDE, you can add a SATA DVD burner to your build for about $15-$20.

If the HDD is IDE, it's probably not worth salvaging. But if you absolutely want to, you should be able to get a PCI IDE controller card for about $15-$20, which would let you plug in both your optical and HDD (one master, one slave).

Edit: Just realized you're not getting a new SATA drive. If both drives are IDE and you go with a IDE controller card, you're going to have problems burning CDs/DVDs. The computer can only talk to one IDE device at a time if they're on the same cable, and most cards will only let you plug in one IDE cable.