Installing A Wd Caviar Se Hdd In A Dell Optiplex 380 Tower?

Evening all, having recently acquired the above mentioned PC to replace an ancient, and now dead, emachines 5250, I would like to know if it's possible to install the HDD from the emachines into the Dell?
The HDD was the boot drive in the emachines and there is also info/files/images which I would like to recover alongside using it as a secondary drive in the Dell. With it having been the boot drive, is it even possible to install it as a secondary drive, maybe with changes to the jumper settings? Also, the HDD from the emachines is a SATA, whereas I believe the HDD in the Dell is SATA II, will this be a compatibility issue?

Any help as always is greatly appreciated...

Best regards, Dazz

 

i would just try it and see if it works. i would think you would have no problems.
with SATA, there are no jumper settings to change, and SATA is backwards compatible, so there should be no problems there. if you plug the SATA drive into a port on the motherboard, and the computer does not see it, you might need to go into the BIOS and make active the SATA port that the hard drive is plugged into. one time, i did what you are trying to do, and i went into the BIOS and activated all of the SATA motherboard ports, both used and unused, and the computer complained bitterly until i deactivated the unused SATA ports. but the added hard drive did not show up until i went into the BIOS and activated the specfic port it was plugged into. good luck with it. if nohing else you can always buy a USB hard drive dock and access the files in that manner.

 

Thanks for your reply, harmless, much appreciated...
Can you just clarify that there shouldn't be a problem with the HDD from the old PC being a boot drive (Win XP) interfering with the HDD in the 'newer' Dell running Win 10?

-Dazz

 

Your Dell will boot to Windows 10 but, you should then be able to access the files you want from that XP drive. It should show in File Explorer. Then you can put the XP drive in a USB enclosure and use it for storage.

I have two Dell laptops and had two hard drives in one of them. Whenever I restarted my laptop, a message came up about RAID and to press F11 to set it up. I ignored this message and it went to my boot choice menu (I multi-boot).

 

There won't be a problem as long as you don't try to boot from the old drive.
It effectively becomes a secondary drive and you can copy any files you need to the primary drive (or an external drive).

 

Thanks for the replies, guys, very much appreciated!

-Dazz

 

Another question if I may, please?
The hard drive has Adobe Elements 10 installed on it, if I fit it in an external enclosure, will I be able to run the programme as normal?

-Dazz

 

No you won't.

 

ok, thanks

-Dazz

 

With XP, I found it was sometimes possible to boot from another machine - But, disconnect the other hard drive first.
Drivers are the worst problem, as it was an e-machine, but you might just find really bad graphics, when you try it- Worth a try.
I used to do all sorts of things like this, years ago, and if it does not , after shutting down, connect the other hard drive, and try as suggested by mdonah, and harmless.
If you can get it to boot, you may be able to get the registration info from the program you would like to use.

 

Do you have the same Windows XP CD as the editon/version installed on the hard disk?

 

Thanks for the further replies, guys.
Eldon, I don't have the Win XP CD as the OS was installed in a partition on the hard drive and came with no CD's. I have discovered that Adobe still allows you to download Photoshop CS2 for free, so I've installed that and will now manage without the Elements 10 software I was looking to access.
When I finally get round to fitting the drive in an external enclosure and have recovered the files etc that I want to save, I'd like to completely format the hard drive, will this remove the partition with the OS in? Or is it a more involved procedure to completely wipe a drive?

-Dazz

 

Dazz, I think you must first save all the files you need/want from the old hard disc - and don't format the disc.
Get back to us once you have done that - there might be a solution to continue using the old programs on the Windows XP HDD.

BTW How did you activate Adobe Photoshop CS2?

 

Yes, retrieve the files. But, once that XP drive is in an enclosure, you won't be able to boot from it. XP doesn't allow "Windows to go". As Eldon said, there is the possibility of running the XP apps — but that will be discussed later.

 

Morning, guys.
Once I've retrieved and saved the files/photos etc that I want off the drive, and now that I've managed to download Photoshop CS2 onto my current PC, I will no longer need any of the apps/programmes installed on it, Elements 10 was really the only one of real interest but, I can now manage without it. So the drive is really just needed for storage, hence the query about formatting it completely.
Eldon, you need to set up an Adobe I.D., which is free to do, then navigate to the downloads page on the Adobe website, once you've located the CS2 download, click on the version you want, MAC or Win, and the activation key is displayed next to it. There are whole raft of free downloads available once you have an Adobe I.D., I also downloaded Acrobat 7 Pro. If you need any more info let me know...

-Dazz

 

OK. Since you have the files you want, the simplest way to "blank" the XP drive is to go into Disk Management, right click on the USB connected drive and select Delete Volume then, confirm the action. The drive will show as unallocated. Right click the USB connected drive again and select Create New Volume. Follow the steps. You can let Windows Format the drive.

 

Thanks, mdonah, much appreciated...

-Dazz

 

Thanks.
I'll have a look.