Moving A System Drive From Vista To A Windows 10 Computer

The only hard drive I have in my Vista system is a SATA drive. Over the last week the system has been slowly dying and now all it does when I turn the system on is make a clicking sound that comes from the monitor's speakers. One of the monitor's indicators flashes like it used to upon start-up but not that action never yields anything.

After swapping the power cables to the drive with known good ones I removed the drive and would like to put it into my HP Pavilion system as a second hard SATA. Will it work? I would try it but I'm afraid of blowing out something in my HP system if the drive is no good and then I'm up the creek.

 

I should add that the Vista drive has some files I would like to salvage, therefore the reason for wanting to attach it to my Win 10 computer.

 

Mount it in a cheap USB external drive enclosure. If the drive is ok and win 10 can read it you will be able to recover any files you want and reformat it for use as a data drive. Does sound as if it's on death row though.

 

I thought that a SATA drive (or any other hard drive that stores system stuff along with user stuff) could not be used as a USB drive due to the different interfaces. Or?

 

You mean something like this -> https://www.walmart.com/c/kp/external-hard-drive-enclosures ??

Cupla questions:

My SATA drive has a power connector. Do these enclosures derive power for the drive from the USB cable, negating the need for an external power connection ?

If the SATA drive has a Vista OS. If the drive is working, how will that OS affect my Win 10 system?

 

Another question: If a USB drive enclosure says it works with SATA III but doesn't specify SATA I or II, will it also work with a SATA I (which I believe I have because I've had it since 2008)?

 

The enclosure firmware deals with the SATA/USB interface

You need to order a 3.5" enclosure that has its own power connection. USB does not provide sufficient power to run a 3.5" drive.

There is no effect at all on Win 10. It will ignore the Vista OS and treat everything on the drive as just data.

All SATA III enclosures are backward compatible with SATA I or II

Given how cheap new internal hard disks are currently this is only a worthwhile solution if you need to recover files off the Vista disc. Otherwise just buy a new drive.

 

Thank you Earthling! Your replies were very helpful.

When my problem first appeared, the Windows Start-Up chime sounded but the last part was cut off but Windows would come up. A week later when I started Windows only the first 3 tones would sound. After a couple of restarts Windows would not start at all. As a last resort I swapped monitors and their cables with another system and then the system came up nicely. So it looks like I need a new monitor (sigh...)