New computer with Vista

[Guest]

My old computer had XP.
It died, motherboard is wasted.
Decided to buy new computer has Vista.
Lots of info in old Computer.
Can I simply take out old Hardrive (XP computer) and put in new computer
(Vista computer) and vista will read the drive?

 

[Richard in AZ]

My old computer had XP.
It died, motherboard is wasted.
Decided to buy new computer has Vista.
Lots of info in old Computer.
Can I simply take out old Hardrive (XP computer) and put in new computer
(Vista computer) and vista will read the drive?

Yes if you make the old drive a slave in the computer. You will only be able to access your data
files. You will not be able to run any of the old drive programs.

 

[DP]

My old computer had XP.
It died, motherboard is wasted.
Decided to buy new computer has Vista.
Lots of info in old Computer.
Can I simply take out old Hardrive (XP computer) and put in new computer
(Vista computer) and vista will read the drive?

Basically, yes. However:
1) Make sure it's not set up as your boot drive. You want the Vista drive to
be your boot.

2) You may have to tinker with Vista's permissions before you can read/write
everything fully.

3) If your XP configuration had users and passwords, you may find it hard,
if not impossible to get to some, if not all, of your data on the XP drive.
In other words, old dead XP is still protecting those files from the grave,
as it were.
I believe there are ways to crack that, but it may take a little work. And
this is separate from the permissions issue in item #2. You may work your
way through issue 2 to find you're still facing issue 3.

 

[Jeff Gaines]

My old computer had XP.
It died, motherboard is wasted.
Decided to buy new computer has Vista.
Lots of info in old Computer.
Can I simply take out old Hardrive (XP computer) and put in new computer
(Vista computer) and vista will read the drive?

Yes.
If it is a PATA drive then you will need a PATA connector in the new PC to
connect it to and you need to ensure you set the jumpers correctly (i.e.
slave or master).
If it is a SATA drive then you need a SATA connector in the new PC but
don't need to worry about jumpers.
Another option would be to get an external USB or Firewire case to put it
in, then you can connect it externally to any computer and use it for
backing up in future.

 

[Roy Coorne]

Yes if you make the old drive a slave in the computer. You will only be able to access your data
files. You will not be able to run any of the old drive programs.

FACK. Nevertheless, "Gerb" might try a repair installation of XP on the
old HDD in his new computer (after saving the data from the 'old' disk;-)

Roy