Re-use old harddrive in new pc -WITH OS

[Jiglow]

Dear Rob,

In one of your articles you said that it was sometimes possible to re-use an old harddrive with a disc-image on completely new hardware. --"with some tweaking, and possibly a lot of tweaking".

I have just built a new pc - with ASUS P5E-VM HDMI board and Intel quad-core, 4gb ram, etc. and am trying to reuse the disc image from my old harddrive as the data is more important to me than the pc, (the old motherboard died.) But the old OS, (XP Pro), won't get past a blue-screen warning: "STOP: 0 X 0000007B"

Could you elaborate on this discussion please or give me some other alternatives. I could certainly use any help you could give.

Thank you,

Jiglow

[Rob]

It might be better to use the old hard drive as a second hard drive and install the OS on a new hard drive on the new hardware. This is what I've done in the past and it's worked out ok.

As you're finding out, simply re-using the old hard drive is troublesome.

If I were to try it I would:
1) Clone the hard drive and try using the cloned hard drive.
2) With the cloned hard drive in the OLD computer, uninstall/remove as many drivers as possible.
3) Then try this stripped down hard drive with the new computer.


Probably it would be a good idea to boot with the hard drive on the new hardware in safe mode, and then install drivers for the new hardware in safe mode.

If anyone else has any thoughts then feel free to chime in.

[The Wise Monkey]

You would have to run a repair on your OS - is it XP or Vista?

[Jiglow]

MY OS IS XP PRO. IF I UNDERSTAND ROB CORRECTLY, AND, TAKING A HINT FROM A TECH AT FRY'S, I COULD INSTALL A FRESS XP PRO ON THE NEW HARDDRIVE, BUT THEN POINT ALL OTHER PROGRAMS TO ANOTHER HARDDRIVE, (THE OLD ONE), AND PROCEED FROM THERE. IS THIS A VIABLE STATEGY?

THANKS FOR THE PROMPT REPLIES

JIGLOW:confused:

[Rob]

You could do like Wise Monkey says. When doing step 3, install the OS using the repair option.

[bug]

To help clarify a little, do not pick the first repair/recovery option that you see during installation. That will take you into Automated System Recovery, which is basically a command-line interface for XP.

You need to install as usual until you get to the third step in the process (as Rob said) and select the option to repair the existing installation.

It's always easiest to strip out all of the drivers on the old computer first, though. The most important one seems to be for the drive controller. It may also help to install the new drivers while the drive is still in the old computer -- this will (hopefully) let Windows see them as soon as the new hardware is discovered.

[Goop]

I hope this is where this post belongs.

I guess I have been lucky in the past with this same CHORE :mad: Today is not my lucky day. Here is an issue that will make I.T. PEEPS grin in sympathy. I am an old SCOUnix guy.

The last computer that I built was 4 years ago. Then again 4 years ago I had built "kabookles" (a huge number) up to that point. For it's time the sleek 3.2 Intel Pentium 4 was a sexy beast, smoking along with its 256mb G-force something or other graphics card, 21" flat screen monitor and a whopping 2gb of early generation DDRAM....woohooo...Yeah, your jealous, I can tell.

Fast forward to today. The Comptroller in our office came in and her computer would not start. I mean, hit the switch and nothing. Of course everything she did on Tuesday was to be backed up after she started her computer Wednesday morning. (For those not following at home, assuming you have even gotten this far, today is Wednesday). Of course, all things being wonderfully beautiful in this world, on Tuesday, she created financially critical files that she forgot to place on the corporate server leaving these wonderful tid-bits of information on her hard drive. You know, the one that is in the case and will not power up.

So, any of you corporate IT gurus feelin' me on this one? As some of my favorite people in the company are getting up on their windowsills and prepping for what we call the Wall Street Swan, I, in my infinite wisdom, flowing super-hero hormonal cape (did I mention the comptroller is a hot, single Latina?) and quickly shrinking moment of glory declare that "I will build a cheap computer that is virginal and yet to be corrupted by XP Pro packets therefore, creating a perfect world in which to simply plug the old xp-pro OS hard drive in and retrieve the "golden data," AT THE SAME TIME ALLOWING SAID COMPTROLLER (Did I mention she is hot?) TO CONTINUE IN HER QUEST TO SAVE OUR 401 (K'S) FROM THE EVIL EMPIRE UN-ABATED.....F$%k, what a dream!:(

As stated in an earlier post today, I questioned if I really bought a brand new lemon of a mobo. I did. Replaced mobo and headed off into Bios-land still confident that my super-hormonal-hero-ness would not be tarnished.

Of course there are easier ways to retrieve this data but, easy does not buy me brownie points with the comptroller (Did I mention she is hot?)

Clock...SET
Boot Order...damn, does not recognize hard drive but recognizes CD drive...Since mobo is A cheap (I mean in-expensive) ASUS it has one IDE plug which, I used the original ribbon from the DEAD computer in order to hook up multiple IDE devices while I slowly converted her to a more modern and friendlier universe for the next five years. OK, GO GET NEW RIBBON THAT CAME WITH BOARD AND ONLY CONNECT HDD.

Woohooo...Bios recognizes Western Digital HDD...Time to boot....

RAKEMSAKEMIDIOTF&^KINSHEEPS#$T....

Will not enter OS land; keeps re-setting to post...Any ideas for this flailing would be super-hormonal-hero that knows JUST ENOUGH to be dangerous? I know I am probably overlooking the obvious....(Did I mention she is hot?)

I Will be standing by pathetically watching for your reply unless, of course, genius strikes at this unlikeliest of time...Oh yeah, I will have a rescue, repair, service whatever name you would like to give it tomorrow at 09:30 am...I would sure like to call the comptroller tonight with word that her world has returned to normal. (Yeah, you know it; SHE IS HOT!)

[The Wise Monkey]

Hah, I wonder what your motivation is... XD

You should follow the same procedure as outlined above by bug, as this will act as a sort of fresh install, but will keep all data and programs that she had on the old PC.

For future reference, you can buy hard drive enclosures that allow you to plug in a HD of your choice and connect it to another PC via the USB port, like this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817716055

Could have saved yourself a lot of money and effort. :)

[Goop]

All is well!

Though my cape is soiled...a bit. When her computer died I opened my big mouth to help her get a new computer as she had been screaming for one the last 2 years to no avail. What she had was almost as good as an e-machine. Now she has something with a tad of grace.

I knew the cases existed and I have always wanted to try one but it has been one of those items that I have always forgotten about when I walked into the "tech porn" shop known as Fry's. Call me sentimental but I do get glassy eyed when I walk through those doors.

I love this site. As someone that has lived and died from the late 80's - 2000's Bubble it is nice to see a place where people can help people in a non-condescending manner! Kuuuuuuddddddooooosssss
;)

[Goop]

Sorry, I did not post this on the earlier post. I had a meeting.

I am either going to look like an idiot or many of you will find this interestingly (is that a word?) simple.

Re-cap.

Objective:
A. Build new, inexpensive computer to replace old IDE based computer where mobo died. Main programs comptroller needed to run...Quick Books and Outlook...nothing more. Internet surfing...woohoooo:p

B. To take old HDD (Western Digital...for this build that is important to know) with XP-PRO OS plug it in and basically let it rip.

C. Hook up with comptroller :D Remember she is hot...

New System:
ASUS P5GC-MX/1333 MOBO...
2gb Crucial 240-Pin Dimm 128Mxx64 DDR2 PC2-5300 Unbuffered...
1 IDE Western Digital 80gb HDD manufactured March 2004...
1 LG IDE 52x32x52 CD drive circa 2004...1 Intel Core2 Duo Processor 2.53 GHz, 3MB L2 Cache, 1066 MHz FSB, 45nm
1 G-lite Cooler Master Case

Total cost after mail in rebates...$300.00

Western Digital HDD's come with their Jumper in a neutral position. After some research they are the only HDD manufacturer that does this. So, when you "daisy-chain" IDE devices the Bios will disable the HDD and push it down on the boot order leaving only the CD drive to boot from which, does you no good if the Bios has disabled the HDD.

Moved Jumper to master position. Daisy Chained IDE CD drive (Mobo has only 1 IDE plug)...HDD magically enabled in Bios and moved to second position in Boot order...Placed, this is important for Newbies or "Dangerous" builders like myself (I know just enough to be dangerous):eek: XP-PRO SERVICE PACK 2 DISC in CD drive... Like an idiot that was not thinking I originally tried a repair with an OLD XP-PRO SP-1A disk..As we all know, New to old= Good...Old to new=Bad....Booted from CD and did a simple repair of the installation...With PC's I have found the most elementary of solutions is usually the winner.

OLD HDD, New H-ware environment running smooth and easy in 28 mins...All that was left was the installation of Mobo drivers...

I hope this did not make me look too much like an idiot and will hopefully help someone that was in my same spot.

For those of you that care...Comptroller Hook-up is still a possibility:p