How to install a old hard drive?

[Fix Your Act]

Hello last time I came here for a question it was on my first pc build. Forward two years later and I need a question answered. I look all over the internet and im still confused about this. I want to install my old hard drive and see what's on it. I dont remember at all if I cleared it or not before i built my new pc. All i know is you have to make it a slave and what not. I just went and took out my new hard drive and installed the old one. It freaked out and all i remember is it said windows couldnt start and to fix it etc. Then I saw a blue screen and freaked. So... my question is... how do I go about this? Can I have both in without making the old one a slave?

New hard drive is... Western Digital 1 TB RE3 SATA 3 Gb/s 7200 RPM 32 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Enterprise Hard Drive - WD1002FBYS

Older one is.... WESTERN DIGITAL WD3200AAJS;5188-4453;320GB,

I read that you dont have to do anything if both are satas... but im still confused. If anyone can answer me thank you. Im just scared i'm gonna mess up my computer.

 

[saint19]

Hi and welcome to Tom's forum.

At this time you do not need set HDDs as master or slave, just connect both and you will see the information that you need on Windows Explorer.

 

[Fix Your Act]

Hi and welcome to Tom's forum.

At this time you do not need set HDDs as master or slave, just connect both and you will see the information that you need on Windows Explorer.

I forgot to mention. The older one has windows vista and the newer one has windows 7. that wont be a problem?

 

[junkeymonkey]

cause windows on the old drive is tied to your old builds motherboard .. now if your just needing to get some files off it just hook it up like a storage drive boot to your new ready to go drive and it should be showing up under computer like as then click on it follow prompt and go in to it and get the files you need

its no longer a bootable drive unless you put it back on its original build

 

[saint19]

Hi and welcome to Tom's forum.

At this time you do not need set HDDs as master or slave, just connect both and you will see the information that you need on Windows Explorer.

I forgot to mention. The older one has windows vista and the newer one has windows 7. that wont be a problem?

With SATA standard the motherboard gives priority to the HDD plugged in on SATA_0 port so while you do not change that you will be able to both on Windows 7 even if the other HDD have Vista on it.

 

[Fix Your Act]

cause windows on the old drive is tied to your old builds motherboard .. now if your just needing to get some files off it just hook it up like a storage drive boot to your new ready to go drive and it should be showing up under computer like as then click on it follow prompt and go in to it and get the files you need

its no longer a bootable drive unless you put it back on its original build

So basically just install it and boot my computer like normal?

 

[Fix Your Act]

Alright. So i just hook up the old one and start my pc up normally and everything will be okay? Sorry if im acting like a noob about this. Just dont want to mess up my computer

 

[junkeymonkey]

install it as drive 2 as you would a storage drive and just boot to your new primary drive your using now


one thing is if one drive is loaded with windows and was set for ahci and one is set for ide it may not work at all.. this is why I only use platter drives and all set to ide so I can access any old drive as I need to just by hot plugging them up [like my old internal drives are now like a external drive ]

if I need a file from a old xp or vista hard drive form a old build all I have to do is hook them up but there no good to boot from due that there copy of windows was tied to the old builds

 

[Fix Your Act]

Okay if all goes well can i just leave it in there?

 

[junkeymonkey]

turn off your computer grab your old hard drive and a spare sata cable plug the sata cable to the hard drive and then to a open sata port on the mother board then grab a psu sata power lead and hook it to the drive

now turn the computer back on and go in to bios and sata configuration and see the drive is listed and ready - exit and boot to desktop -- once there go to start -computer and you should see your 2 hard drives now

dubble click on the old drive and it may just open to its files like normal or you may get a prompt to do somthing i think you just ckick yes and it should then let you in ?? [been so long i dont recall excatly what it prompts ]

then you should be able to get all the files as normal..

 

[Fix Your Act]

turn off your computer grab your old hard drive and a spare sata cable plug the sata cable to the hard drive and then to a open sata port on the mother board then grab a psu sata power lead and hook it to the drive

now turn the computer back on and go in to bios and sata configuration and see the drive is listed and ready - exit and boot to desktop -- once there go to start -computer and you should see your 2 hard drives now

dubble click on the old drive and it may just open to its files like normal or you may get a prompt to do somthing i think you just ckick yes and it should then let you in ?? [been so long i dont recall excatly what it prompts ]

then you should be able to get all the files as normal..

Okay thanks! I think i got my answer

 

[junkeymonkey]

what did you come up with then ??