copying HD to new computer

[Ryde]

ok so i just got my new computer but i really dont want to go through the hassle of downloading all my programs etc again.

I was thinking of just putting my old 30G C: drive as the master C drive in my new system and using the new 250G just for storage etc. When i tried this i found out that the new computer is a west.dig SATA drive and my old ones are all IDE. I tried to set it up but it always loads off of the new drive anyway, even when the 30G is set up as master.

Is it possible to just copy my entire C drive over from my old system to the new one? Both computer's have XP installed. If i copy everything over (including XP) would everything on the new system function as it did before? thanks

 

[Tommy Boy]

install the new drive into the computer and load xp onto it. then install the old drive into the computer and put it as a slave. then just drag and drop all the files you want to keep from the old hd to the new hd. once you have all the files saved that you want, then format the old drive and use it for storage. no, you can't just switch the old hard drive to the new computer, xp won't allow it.

 

[Ryde]

k i'll do that, thanks TB

 

[CrossCech]

did you happen to check in your bios to make sure that the drive you want to boot from is the chosen drive? Just telling your pc to "boot from hard drive, before another bootable source" might not be enough. For example, my BIOS lists all 4 of my hard drives individually in the boot order list, along with floppy, and cd drives. Perhaps this is why your pc seems to only want to boot from the new sata drive rather than your 30 gb ide drive.

Tommy Boy is correct, that XP probably wont allow you to install your old drive into another pc and start up. I say probably, cause I have at times been successful in doing what you're trying to do, but not always. Think it has to do with the newer versions of XP Pro ... like XP Pro SP1a and whatnot. Might be that the ones I've had success with were pre-SP1 or SP2 versions.