Old HD into new PC

I would like to buy a new PC to replace an Intel MMX machine but don’t won’t to reload all of my applications, some of which I no longer have the installation disks for. The existing PC has a new Maxtor 30gb (c=7.5gb;d=7.5gb;remainder not formatted/unpartitioned). When this drive was installed, a tech downloaded my apps from the original drive but had a tough time. I don’t have lots of time, I’m in school. Could I just buy say an e-machine and drop the Maxtor into it cabled as the primary HHD and expect it to run all of my apps? Win98 SE is installed on the Maxtor and is my operating system of choice, I have original installation disk.

 

You can take that drive and put it into another system. You will have to update some of the drivers and every should be fine.

 

Shadow_Puter_Dude

Are you talking about drivers for any hdwre that might be in the e-machine? Assuming I take my burner and usb pci card out of the old and put in the new; the drivers would still be in the Maxtor right? Guess my question is, what drivers would I need?

Thanks - Larry Allen

 

Specifically the Motherboard Drivers. If you are moving the rest of the hardware over, then there should be no need for any other drivers.

 

Shadow_Puter_Dude,
Well, I haven't bought an e-machine yet. Contacted them re: motherboard downloads, etc. and they pretty much want nothing to do with what I proposed. Anyway the major consideration was in just getting a faster chip and more memory capability on the motherboard. With this in mind I see gobs of guys mktg. "barebones" machines w/o hard drives. Could you recommend anyone that does an AMD64 3200+ build w/>512 of RAM,audio and video that I could simply transplant my HD into? Or better yet, that would drop my old HD into w/a quick turn around. Sorry to be a pain.
Thanks, Larry Allen

 

Your "old" hard drive will contain settings and drivers for hardware which won't exist in the new machine (unless it's identical), so you will have to update drivers and possibly install Windows over itself.

That doesn't always work. The ideal way is to do a format and new install.

It's also more than likely that your "old" drive is slower, so it may slow down your new system somewhat.

 

Agree with Insomniac. If your upgrading to that kind of system then its probably best to get a new harddrive.

Just do all the installing on the new one and then plug in the old one and transfer all the stuff you want over. Thats probably your best bet!!

MoffMan/Kiwi

 

Insomniac and kiwiredman10 are right in suggesting that the cleanest upgrade will be by starting from scratch. And yes, if you go that route you lose the use of any program software that you don't have install disks for.

Shadow_Puter_Dude is also right. Transplanting the hard drive does sometimes work just fine -- with Win 98. (I've had it both ways -- one worked, one didn't.) If the alternative is losing some of your software, it would be worth a try. You can always do a clean install if it doesn't work out.

If you try the transplant, I'd suggest the following:

• make sure your backups are current
• make sure you have your Win98 CD-ROM handy
• uninstall the drivers for any hardware that won't be on the new system, then shut down without re-booting
• transplant the hard drive and let Windows install drivers for the new hardware. You may need the Win98 CD-ROM at this point.
• update the drivers for the new hardware if necessary.

As for the new machine: I gather that all you really want is a faster CPU and more memory, with a new motherboard to carry those. If that's all, you might consider doing it yourself if you have some mechanical aptitude. If you can transplant a hard drive yourself, you can probably swap a motherboard. Just make sure that the new mobo has the same form factor as the old one. If your case is a standard tower, you're probably dealing with an ATX form factor. It's pretty standardized.

A tip: make a note of the expansion cards you have in your MMX system, and the type of bus slot they use. You may find that you'll need to upgrade any expansion cards that are installed in ISA slots. Today's mobos often don't provide ISA slots any more.

AGP slots can be an issue. Current AGP cards don't fit in the original AGP slots because they run on a lower voltage. If you have a 5v AGP video card in your MMX system, you'll have to upgrade that too.

 

KiwiWiredMan & Insomniac,

Ok- Can I do this. Can I buy the WinPro Upgrade, use it to upgrade the exiting system as AMD64 prefers Pro. After I've upgraded the old, can I then a) Install 98 on the new machine's hard drive (it comes w/o an operating system) and then upgrade it using WinPro. Now I have 2 HHD's running WinPro. Now do I take the old drive out and install as slave drive in the new machine; if so, how do I copy the application software from the old (now slave) drive to the new? My understanding was that each of the applications has its own DLL's etc. installed within Windows, how would I copy? Again, I do not have original disks associated with some of these applications as they are old but I still prefer to new, i.e., I like Lotus Suite better than Excel, et al. So do I have to use some particular piece of software to do the copy - I've seen on the PCBeginner web site a piece of software that they say will "clone" a hard drive, is this what I need? Thanks to both of you!

 

You're quite right -- that's where the problem is.

Copying the installed software from one drive to another won't do any good unless you're also copying the O/S it's installed to with it. The copying process won't install all of the DLL's, etc needed; nor will it make the entries in the Windows Registry that are necessary to make the software run. Doing either the copying or editing the Registry by hand isn't feasible.

I'm afraid that you have only two options: transplant the O/S and its installed software to the new machine (and hope that it works), or do a clean install and walk away from the software you don't have installation disks for.

BTW -- while the transplant often works in Win 98, it usually does not in later versions of Windows. Upgrading your existing installation to WinXP Pro on the old machine will substantially raise the probability that that installation will not work on the new machine after the transplant.

 

As RobM says, you are right, software cant be "dragged and dropped" onto another hard drive.

I very rarely buy software (I know I know) so I usually just "drag and drop" all the files and profiles for the software I use and then install all the software (and re-do all the drivers and updates) e.t.c onto it. It takes time, but most of it is loading, so you can do schoolwork (yeh right ) whilst its happening.

Your other options are:

a) As Rob M says just hope that two versions of windows on the same disk work

b) use the old drive as the primary drive and the new one for storage. Not ideal, but will save a lot of time and agro.

 

Rob M.,
Rob M.: Thank you for the input! But please let me make sure I understand where you’re coming from.

You are absolutely correct - I only want to replace the motherboard and increase the memory! And, in reviewing the $, I determined that an AMD64 CPU w/new mother was the absolute best bang for the $. I do want to replace the box, it is a true “mini-tower” and impossible to work in.

I have trashed the e-machine route as I had only selected them for their history of good tech support; however, they want no part of any “transplant” concept. So that brings me to a point that you made re: buying the mother and chip. I’ve looked around and I can get a “barebones” AMD64 3200+ (SOCKET 939) or an AMD64 3400+ w/1GB DDR400 (SOCKET 754) both in an ATX case w/420 or 450W supply (respectively) for under $300.00.

Assuming I pick either one of the above I’m still left w/the issue of transferring the software or transplanting the old HHD. Per Shadow_Puter_Dude, it “appears” that I could simply perform the transplant provided I had the driver disk(s) for the mother – as it happens both of the machines I referenced earlier specifically state they come w/the CD driver disk. So this looks viable to me!!!

Prior to the input from KiwiWiredMan & Insomniac, I thought I had it made! Then I spoke to a guy making one of the machines above. He told me that Win98SE was a bad choice and that I ought to go XP Pro – I’ll return to this point in a minute, but let me recap what Insomniac input, he proposed a reformat – this as you state (and I agree) would cost me any applications I don’t have disks for –this is not an option!

Next, kiwiwiredman although agreeing with Insomniac went on to suggest buying a new hard drive and simply plugging in the old one and transferring the data. That suggestion brought me to the question of how do I transfer the data, to my way of thinking data is one thing, software applications are another. That’s why I asked the question about cloning software and as far as that goes how about “Ghost”? So, it’s not about buying a new hard drive – they’re cheap; it’s about the application software some of which cannot be replaced!

The guy building one of the machines suggested WINXP Pro in conjunction w/a new hard drive. Again I have no problem buying another hard drive which he, like kiwiwiredman, advocated. However, he wanted to sell me the hard drive and then perform a transfer himself (applications and all). The problem I have with this is being without a machine doesn’t work for me! Furthermore, if WinXP Pro is the right software, I can upgrade the old while its still in the old machine. So why doesn’t the transplant idea work?

As of right now, I’m of the opinion that I could go ahead with the transplant, no new hard drive at all, and then upgrade to WinXP once I’m running. PS – both of these machines advertise as being Win98 compatible, which translates to me to mean they come with Win98 mother drivers. Or, is this the problem – after I transplant, I’ll boot up to the HHD and it won’t know where it’s at, i.e. it will hang and I won’t be able to load the drivers (e.g., the real reason the guy is proposing I buy another hard drive is that it will be formatted and loaded w/XP while in the new machine w/all current machine drivers loaded).

At this juncture, I don’t know whether to: 1) upgrade the old to XP and then attempt a transplant or just go ahead and try a transplant and then upgrade; or 2) buy a new hard drive, format it and load with XP, install the old as a slave and then pray I can find software to transfer the applications or better yet clone it to the new thus preserving the “C” and “D” designations I need in order to run them.

Re your thoughts – how do I uninstall hdwre drivers, the only things I won’t be taking are the video card and the sound card; what happens to the machine when I uninstall the video ? Will go blank right, and then I can do nothing?

I do know one thing for sure – you are absolutely correct about my needing a video card, the builder confirmed it! What he didn’t say was whether it had to be AGP as PCI slots are available. I have an ATI Mach64 which would probably work but am not taking any chances, so far I have found an ATI Radeon 9200SE 128MB DDR AGP 8X and a GeForce MX4000 128MB DDR AGP 8X both @ reasonable prices – as a TOTAL non-gamer, would either of these be OK or do you have a suggestion?

I really appreciate your help! Thank you, Larry Allen

 

Rob and Folks!

Thank you all. As I see it, it will go down like this. I will remove the old drive "as is", cable it into the new machine and turn on the power. What's the worst that can happen (I will have all data backed up), the machine spins puffs, whirs, and won't boot at all (I'm assuming the emergency boot disk I have won't work either). In which case, I format the disk, install WIN98 upgrade to XP and live without some of my apps.

There is one other thing I'm going to try, assuming my old machine will accept a slave, I may try to copy everything "Ghost" to a second drive in the old, then transplant either the slave or master - it will leave me with the old machine running everything in case I need an old app.

Thanks again _ Lar
PS Still need some input on the video card if you have any thoughts!

 

If it's only a choice between those two cards, then the ATI 9200SE is the better one.

If you are a non-gamer, why don't you see if you can get a motherboard with onboard video, as long as it has an AGP slot so you can always add a video card if need be.

Onboard video is more than good enough for general use.

 

That's a plan. I think it's a good one.

It's not likely that the new system won't boot at all with the transplanted drive. (Oooh. A double negative. Careful how you read that!) If Win98SE is going to misbehave on the new system, it will more likely just be generally cranky and unstable. If you're running Norton Anti-Virus, that becomes even more likely. (The Win98 transplant I did that didn't work -- well, it was NAV that got really cranky. It was my mom's system; she ended up doing a clean re-install.)

If you want to keep your old machine in service, I'd suggest that you "Ghost" your existing C: partition to the C: partition on your new system, then mess with that in whatever way you need to. That leaves your existing installation untouched, and you can run the software you don't have install disks as long as you need to.

That does mean buying another hard drive for the new machine. It also means a whole new machine -- if you're going to keep the old one in service, you won't want to put its peripherals in the new machine unless you're prepared to move them back and forth as needed. That's a drag.

And yes, your old system will almost certainly accept a slave. That's built into the IDE standard.

Well, I'm a total non-gamer too -- and running Win98 SE. You'll also note from my sig block that I'm running a less-capable nVidia card than the one you have in mind -- and for me, what I've got is just fine. Some day I'll upgrade to WinXP, but I'm in no hurry.