moving hard drives

[rizer]

im building a new and faster computer to replace my old computer and what i want to do is move my hard drives from one computer to the the new computer!!

what i want to know is wether the hard drives need to be formated or not.

both systems run windows xp.

i dont want to format the hard drives cos ive got so much information and software on them.

if it is possible to move the hard drives do i have to do anything to the bios if so what??

many thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Charchris]

I'm not sure about this but if you want add another HDD just stick it on slave and connect it and it should show up if its already formated for windows? i would wait for the others to answer first though

 

[rizer]

thanks for the reply. yes ill wait for someone who will know to answer this question for me.

many thanks though.

 

[Mental Liberator]

Do you already have another HD? or are you adding the old one, as the master HDD?

 

[rizer]

like i was saying im taking the hd out of one computer and putting it into a brand new computer that i am building.

 

[wozelbeak]

it don't look like you can, take a look at this.



Moving a hard drive with Windows* 2000 or Windows XP* already installed to a new motherboard without reinstalling the operating system is not recommended.

If a hard drive is moved to a new computer, the registry entries and drivers for the mass storage controller hardware on the new motherboard are not installed in Windows for the new computer and you may not be able to start Windows. This is documented in Microsoft's* knowledge base article †. This is true even if you move the hard drive to a motherboard with the same chipset, as different hardware revisions can cause this issue as well.

Additionally, moving a hard drive to a new motherboard may not exhibit any errors until you install new IDE drivers. This is because each chipset uses a different Plug-n-Play (PNP) ID to identify it. If you move your motherboard, your registry will have multiple PNP IDs (for the old hardware as well as the new hardware). If there are multiple entries in the registry, Windows cannot determine which hardware to initialize and therefore fails with a STOP error.

If you have moved or plan to move your hard drive to another motherboard, Windows will need to be reinstalled. Prior to making any changes to your system, you should perform a full system backup. For additional information, please refer to these instructions

 

[rizer]

many thanks for your help and advice!!!!!!

 

[sho95]

No you can't do it. You must reformat in order for your new mobo driver would work properly.

 

[rizer]

just to let you know that ive just built the computer and placed the two hard drives into it and it fired up np at all i did not have to reinstall anything what so ever.

thanks for all your help everyone