OS conflict

[Juve]

Hi,

I want to dismount the HDD from an older machine and run it as an
external disk via the USB of a brand new machine in order to get some
data off it. The reason being that the mobo of the older machine is no
longer to be trusted. I believe the mobo/BIOS is the cause of my
problems which are that the HDD quite frequently is not detected at
startup. The new machine is running Windows Vista Premium edition. The
HDD from the old machine is partitioned into c: and d: The datafiles
are on c: and the WinXP OS is on d:, stangely enough. It ought to be
the other way around, I know, data on d: and OS on c:, but when the
HDD is detected by BIOS, it works ok on the old machine.

My question is: do I have to format d: and delete alle the XP files
before I connect the HDD to the Vista machine? My worry is that the
the two different OS will conflict with each other.

OR

 

[gls858]

Hi,

I want to dismount the HDD from an older machine and run it as an
external disk via the USB of a brand new machine in order to get some
data off it. The reason being that the mobo of the older machine is no
longer to be trusted. I believe the mobo/BIOS is the cause of my
problems which are that the HDD quite frequently is not detected at
startup. The new machine is running Windows Vista Premium edition. The
HDD from the old machine is partitioned into c: and d: The datafiles
are on c: and the WinXP OS is on d:, stangely enough. It ought to be
the other way around, I know, data on d: and OS on c:, but when the
HDD is detected by BIOS, it works ok on the old machine.

My question is: do I have to format d: and delete alle the XP files
before I connect the HDD to the Vista machine? My worry is that the
the two different OS will conflict with each other.

OR

For a small price you can buy an external USB drive enclosure.
Just slip the drive into the enclosure plug it in and Windows will
detect it. Then when you get the info you need from the drive you can
format it and use the external drive for backups.

gls858

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I want to dismount the HDD from an older machine and run it as an
external disk via the USB of a brand new machine in order to get some
data off it. The reason being that the mobo of the older machine is no
longer to be trusted. I believe the mobo/BIOS is the cause of my
problems which are that the HDD quite frequently is not detected at
startup. The new machine is running Windows Vista Premium edition. The
HDD from the old machine is partitioned into c: and d: The datafiles
are on c: and the WinXP OS is on d:, stangely enough. It ought to be
the other way around, I know, data on d: and OS on c:, but when the
HDD is detected by BIOS, it works ok on the old machine.

My question is: do I have to format d: and delete alle the XP files
before I connect the HDD to the Vista machine?

No.


My worry is that the
the two different OS will conflict with each other.

No need to worry, because what you want to do is not a problem. The
fact that the external drive has an operating system on doesn't matter
at all, whether it's XP or any other operating system. You won't be
running the operating system on the external drive, and whatever is on
it will essentially be treated as data.

And if you're worried about differences in file systems, that's not an
issue between XP and Vista.

 

[John Barnett MVP]

When I disposed of my old PC I took the hard drive out and put it into a HDD
External Box. This allowed me to connect the old drive via a USB cable.

As gls858 suggests in his reply, just get the information you want off the
old hard drive then reformat it and use it as a backup drive.

--

--
John Barnett MVP
Windows XP Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
Web: http://www.silversurfer-guide.com

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