Move harddrives

My motherboard on my computer just konked out, and I need to get a new one. Since my whole computer is REALLY bad (600mhz) except for a 120gb harddrive, I was wondering If I could move the harddrive over to a new system and use it. I was told that this requires you to reinstall windows. Is this true? If it is, does it keep all the settings and old files?

My parents were going to upgrade their computer, and move their harddrive into their new pc and I would move my hd into their old system. Would that work?

 

If you are using Windows XP then I definitely think you would end up with all sorts of problems because XP effectively makes a note of what hardware you have and if you change all the hardware it thinks it is in a "new" PC and will require you to re-activate XP.

If you are using Windows 98SE for instance then yes it is possible and you may be lucky and things will continue to work without too much hassle. If you are running 98SE what you can do is boot to safe mode before you remove the HD from the "old" PC then go to the device manager and delete everything!! Then turn off the PC, take out the HD and put it into the "new" PC as the master disk. Boot this PC and it should then detect all the new hardware but be prepared to load a number of drivers and do a number of re-boots.

Good luck.

 

yes, unfortunatly i am running windows xp.

When you say re-activate, do you mean just connect to the internet and let it do its check?

I read that if it is a different motherboard then it counts as a new computer and you have to buy another liscence, except if you change the motherboard because of a defect. Since I am moving my old hd to my parents old system, and their hd to a new one, wouldnt I be able to get it free because the motherboard broke?

 

You need to remember that different computers have different hardware, and therefore drivers and settings.

You can't take a hard drive from one environment, and place it in an alien one and expect no problems.


You may be able to get away with it in XP by doing a Repair, but you are better off just formatting and starting again.

You will need an unused XP licence, or re-activate the existing one.

You can do that by contacting Micro$$oft by phone and they will issue you a new code.


If you don't want to lose your settings and files, you can use the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard.

It's in the System Tools menu, or on the XP CD.