Old h/d in new pc.

Ok I have a similar question so I decided to post here. I have a friend who bought a new pc. He wanted to transfer everything onto his new H/D. Since I only know how to transfer music, pictures and documents, I told him if he wants everything I could just put his old H/D in and he can take care of the entire transfer later. So the new pc is sata and the old pc used ide cables for the h/d. So I hook up ide to main board and h/d but during start up it gets to xp screen than reboots. A) Do I need drivers to fix this and if so what is the best way to put them on this old h/d. B) Or does anyone know of free software to just completely copy old to new? Any and all help is appreciated. By the way this is my very first post so if this should have it's own thread plz let me know.


New Machine is, Emachine- ET1331G-07w

This post was moved to its own thread. Ty in advance.

 

Greetings, kid jersey.

For clarification: the eMachines has Windows XP as its operating system? The eMachines site is showing that model as shipping with Win7.

If the machine has Win7 installed, but is trying to boot to XP, then make sure the IDE drive's jumper is not set to 'Master'.

Frankly, I think your best bet would be to use a discrete adapter, such as this one, and transfer files via USB.

 

ok so the old h/d comes from an emachine t3958 with xp os. the new pc is a emachine et1331g-07w with win 7 os. The owner of the pc's is an accountant and needs all his tax information on new pc. He doesn't understand that I can't transfer programs from old h/d to new h/d so i was hoping to just put his old xp h/d in new pc. I am not trying to run both h/d's just the old one. Which will be the only drive that will be using ide cabling. (I had a extra ide cable laying around.) So is it still necessary to have it in slave option? Bottom line is I can transfer files using my usb to sata/ide cable but he will not be able to accses the data without the programs being installed on the new h/d. Correct me if i am not right.

 

It is not necessary to have it in the slave position with only one HD, Master would be the correct setting in that situation. You will have a problem getting the XP HD to boot in a new machine with different hardware. I don't think there is a good way to fix this situation. The drivers etc. in the Xp installation will balk at trying to run in a different machine.

Installation of his tax programs on the new Win7 HD and transferring his tax data files is really the best way to handle the situation.

I might be missing some easier transfer method but I know of none.

Wait and see what Caliban or others have to say.

 

Thanks sach2 I saw a related post you made about cloning the HD to another HD. Not sure if that could work in my case. For more clarification the old HD was pulled from an emachine with a fried motherboard. So since I cant make this guy understand that programs will not transfer, I thought this would have worked for him. If anyone else has had experience with this please feel free to help before I give out the bad news. Thanks Caliban!!

 

Cloning will just copy the whole XP installation over to the new HD. The drivers still won't work. Somewhere on the web you will see people say try doing a repair install of XP to get XP to recognize the new hardware but I think that is just asking for trouble. Most likely it will just make things on the XP hard drive worse and totally unbootable even on an identical old machine.

His situation is not fun but millions of people do it every year. If he has installation discs for his software then getting his data files in the correct folders shouldn't take that long. As long as you don't try to do anything too tricky with his old HD all his data file should remain accessible for him to copy should he later find something missing.

Again, maybe there is something I'm overlooking, so anyone with ideas--Please jump in!

 

Agreed - in fact, I had to perform that exact task fairly recently on a client's machine using Turbo Tax.

 

Below is a method I once used to transfer a HDD with XP from one PC to another (I posted the instructions elsewhere at the time). Trouble is, it required the old PC to be working. Wondering if there's a way around that, as kid jersey's old PC is apparently not working anymore.

How to move a HDD with XP installed onto another PC if you don't have an XP CD (or even if you do), and you're having trouble - like getting a BSOD. The idea is to start reinstalling the HDD drivers on the original PC, then swap the HDD to the new PC half way through. Naturally, this only works if the original PC and harddrive still work.

1. On the original PC, go to Control Panel > System > Hardware tab > Device Manager.
2. Find the IDE ATA/ATAPI CONTROLLERS and expand the +.
3. Right-click the IDE controller - NOT the primary or secondary controller... the other one.
4. Choose Update Driver.
5. Choose "Install from a list or specific location". Click Next.
6. Choose "Don't search. I will choose the driver to install". Click next.
7. Highlight the Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller. Click Next.
8. The Standard controller will (part) install.
9. Shut down and move the HDD to the new PC.
10. Boot in Safe Mode.
11. Restart normally.

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The only way I know "around it", is to do a "Windows Repair", with an XP disc.

This means a fresh copy of Windows, leaving the file system intact.

Sometimes you get the "repair" option, at the second screen after Windows boots from CD, sometimes you don't. If it doesn't, you normally get a third option if you choose to install windows as you would normally. This way usually wipes out your apps, but it should leave the file system intact.

If you have all your apps on CD, or in a single folder as I do, re-installing the apps/updating Windows can be a pain, but you only re-write the Windows installation, and then you can dual boot if you want to.

The nice thing about the "Repair a Windows Installation" option, is it leaves the apps intact.