new computer and old hard drive

E

Eddie G

I was given a "new" computer that has the floppy drive in the primary IDE
slot and the DVD and CD drives in the secondary IDE slot. My current
machine is IDE and for now I want to put my hard drive in the newer machine
until I get a SATA drive. Can I just put the current hard drive in the new
machine in the primary IDE slot and either disconnect the floppy or put it
on the ribbon cable with the optical drives, putting them in the secondary
IDE slot? I was told that there is a chance that I can damage the boot
sector of the hard drive by just plugging it into the IDE controller. Is
this true? Should I wait until I get the IDE controller card that my
brother-in-law can mail to me?

Thanks!!

Eddie G
 
J

Just Bob

Eddie said:
I was given a "new" computer that has the floppy drive in the primary
IDE slot and the DVD and CD drives in the secondary IDE slot. My
current machine is IDE and for now I want to put my hard drive in the
newer machine until I get a SATA drive. Can I just put the current
hard drive in the new machine in the primary IDE slot and either
disconnect the floppy or put it on the ribbon cable with the optical
drives, putting them in the secondary IDE slot? I was told that
there is a chance that I can damage the boot sector of the hard drive
by just plugging it into the IDE controller. Is this true? Should
I wait until I get the IDE controller card that my brother-in-law can
mail to me?
Thanks!!

Eddie G

Why don't you clone the drive before you do anything.
 
E

Eddie G

Just Bob said:
Why don't you clone the drive before you do anything.

How do I do that with just one hard drive on my current machine? I thought
I need 2 hard drives to clone one to the other, and my current machine does
not support SATA.
 
J

Just Bob

Eddie said:
How do I do that with just one hard drive on my current machine? I
thought I need 2 hard drives to clone one to the other, and my
current machine does not support SATA.

I would only say that not keeping a drive backed up is taking a risk even
under usual conditions. I have done what you are attempting several times
with no problems. Put the drive on the IDE cable as master with an optical
drive as slave. The System probably only has one channel for HDDs and four
SATA connectors. Later you can move the OS to a SATA if you care to.
 
G

GreenieLeBrun

Eddie said:
I was given a "new" computer that has the floppy drive in the primary IDE
slot and the DVD and CD drives in the secondary IDE slot. My current
machine is IDE and for now I want to put my hard drive in the newer machine
until I get a SATA drive. Can I just put the current hard drive in the new
machine in the primary IDE slot and either disconnect the floppy or put it
on the ribbon cable with the optical drives, putting them in the secondary
IDE slot? I was told that there is a chance that I can damage the boot
sector of the hard drive by just plugging it into the IDE controller. Is
this true? Should I wait until I get the IDE controller card that my
brother-in-law can mail to me?

Thanks!!

Eddie G

Take a closer look at your motherboard. Floppy drive ribbon cables are
a different size (34 connections) to HDD ribbon cables (40
connections).

If your "new" machine has is a SATA/PATA machine then it may have just
one IDE connection. If that is the case then you will only be able to
have two IDE devices (one master and one slave) unless you get an
additional IDE controller card.

Set the jumpers on the HDD as master and set the jumpers on either the
DVD or CD as slave, as I said above if you only have one IDE channel
then you are limited to two IDE devices.
 
P

philo

Eddie said:
I was given a "new" computer that has the floppy drive in the primary IDE
slot and the DVD and CD drives in the secondary IDE slot. My current
machine is IDE and for now I want to put my hard drive in the newer machine
until I get a SATA drive. Can I just put the current hard drive in the new
machine in the primary IDE slot and either disconnect the floppy or put it

<SNIP>
you should double check your machine...
I;ve never ehard of an IDE floppy...maybe it's a zip drive

anyway...if your drive has an operating system on it...it's not as easy
as just popping it in another machine...
the hardware is different.
if you are using XP, you may have to perform a repair installation
 
D

DaveW

If you move the harddrive containing the OS to a different computer (with a
DIFFERENT MOTHERBOARD) then you have to reformat the harddrive and do a
fresh install of the OS. Otherwise you will get ongoing nasty Registry
errors and data corruption.
 
K

kony

If you move the harddrive containing the OS to a different computer (with a
DIFFERENT MOTHERBOARD) then you have to reformat the harddrive and do a
fresh install of the OS. Otherwise you will get ongoing nasty Registry
errors and data corruption.


Untrue, Google for how many times DaveW has been told this
by so many different people that it's just plain silly he
keeps repeating it.
 
P

philo

Untrue, Google for how many times DaveW has been told this
by so many different people that it's just plain silly he
keeps repeating it.



XP/Win2k will generally work after a repair installtion.

Win98 will usually reconfigures itself OK after a few reboots
(at worst an install over would do the trick)

Most Linux versions will automatically reconfigure...
(though a few tweaks may be needed)

With WindowsME a fresh install is *sometimes* necessary
 
K

kony

XP/Win2k will generally work after a repair installtion.

Yep, sometimes not even that is needed... but either way,
"ongoing nasty regsitry errors" isn't likely, nor is data
corruption. Worst case is typically that the OS won't
finish booting, not some other perpetual problem. If it
boots it will plug n play the new board and other parts.
 
R

Robert Heiling

kony said:
Yep, sometimes not even that is needed... but either way,
"ongoing nasty regsitry errors" isn't likely, nor is data
corruption. Worst case is typically that the OS won't
finish booting, not some other perpetual problem. If it
boots it will plug n play the new board and other parts.

Yes. That's been my experience and I've freely moved bootable OS hard drives
from machine to machine. The most recent case was last year when I moved a Win98
HD from an older machine with different chipsets and an AGP video card as
opposed to this motherboard graphics. It was necessary to visit the various
manufacturers' websites to locate the right drivers. If those drivers were in a
format to be used by the plug & play installation process, then it was only
necessary to load them to someplace on the drive so that they were available. If
they were in a .exe form, it was necessary to boot into safe mode to install
them. It all worked out just fine and there never was any question about data
corruption. Everything was already backed up anyhow as it should be in any case!

It should be noted that the new drivers would have been needed for a fresh
installation of Win98 also if that route had been taken.

Bob
 

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