vista and xp.

[badback]

Hi guys, my old desktop pc packed in the other day and I've just purchased a new one, the new one has Vista with the capabilities to upgrade to Windows 7, my old one on XP has 2 hard drives. My question is, can I connect my old hard drives to the new pc so that I can retrieve any old files and pics, I'm not certain that the old drive with xp is faulty or whether it was the mother board that's knackered. So is there any reason why I can't try to connect them? Thanks in advance.

[steve]

Nope no reason, you can connect over sata or IDE depending on old drive and new board. Then browse as disks and copy and paste! Simple. If you dont fancy opening up new pc to connect then these are handy http://www.amazon.co.uk/SATA-Adaptor.../dp/B000Q5YW76 HTH matey

[badback]

Nope no reason, you can connect over sata or IDE depending on old drive and new board. Then browse as disks and copy and paste! Simple. If you dont fancy opening up new pc to connect then these are handy http://www.amazon.co.uk/SATA-Adaptor.../dp/B000Q5YW76 HTH matey

Cheers Steve, I like the look of the usb lead in the link, I'll be able to swap the two drives as and when I need the storage space. Thx mate.

[Deztroyer]

wait until you've upgraded to windows 7 before you do the transfer - as there's more compatibility with xp on 7 then there was with vista

i'm loving 7 compared to vista which drained my laptop and made it soo slow - now, iturn on and by the time the welcome screen is on i can connect to the internet and start browsing straight away ...and i'm running norton 360 v3 which slows it down a bit - so fairly impressed
got windows7 ultimate (full version)for just over £60 legitimately as well

[Birchy63]

Yep, use an external cable or get yourself a USB HD enclosure and keep the drive for storage. If you use just a cable then you need to bare in mind cooling, the hard drive will over heat if left on for too long as it'll have nowhere the dissipate the heat.

[badback]

Thanks guys I've registered to get windows 7 so I'll wait until it arrives before adding the old hard drive.

[jimbob78]

wouldnt mind windows 7 need power point etc on it any where cheap to get it from??

[Big Knox]

powerpoint is part of Office, not Windows 7

[badback]

A bit of an update, I purchased a 3.5" IDE/SATA HDD USB 2.0 Combo Enclosure, (£19.99 at my local pc shop) I've inserted both my old hard drives into it and the small 80gb one is fine which I basically new because I only stored stuff on it. On the other hand the main 160gb drive has a virus that Norton 360 can't delete, so my next question is can I put both the old drives back into my old pc using the smaller one that's ok as the main boot device and then format the other one from there? so that I can use both as storage devices for the new pc, or is the infected drive useless now? Thx.

[Waterboy]

You should be able to do a full (non Quick) format of the infected drive to enable it to be reused