Migrating Hard Drive Contents

[William1]

Is it possible to take a Hard Drive from a dead computer and transfer ALL data, software and settings to the new computer's drive?
Old system was running WinXPHome and the Mobo shorted and took the CPU with it. The drive is HD is fine.
New system is running WXPMediaCenter.
Would like to take contents of old drive and 'import' all the info (except XPHome) into the new XPMediaCenter hard drive.

I am leaning to purchasing an external hd case (usb 2.0) put the old drive in it, connect it to the new computer and use the file transfer wizard.

Any advise will gladly be accepted!

 

[DJ-CHRIS1]

Well if you copied EVERYTHING than the system wouldnt work, as you would have copied over lots of XP home stuff and old drivers.

You need to carefully figure out what infomation you need from the old PC and manually copy it back.

 

[D-Lew]

I think Windows has a Data Transfer wizard... Can someone back me up on this?
I'm not sure if it will work within the same machine, though.

 

[DirtBikeRidr]

yes there is a windows data transfer program, but there also other ways to transfer:

1. buy a special usb to usb cable will allow u to directly transfer data from 1 pc to another
2. copy everything to a hdd, and then transfer it to ur new one
3. put both pc's on a network, and then share the files that u want to transfer and then open it on the other comp.
4. dvd or cd back up
5. ubs mass storage
6. or u can take the old hdd and put that in the new one as a slave (i dont no if that will work though because of the OS on 2 hdd in one computer might conflict)

 

[William1]

yes there is a windows data transfer program, but there also other ways to transfer:

1. buy a special usb to usb cable will allow u to directly transfer data from 1 pc to another
2. copy everything to a hdd, and then transfer it to ur new one
3. put both pc's on a network, and then share the files that u want to transfer and then open it on the other comp.
4. dvd or cd back up
5. ubs mass storage
6. or u can take the old hdd and put that in the new one as a slave (i dont no if that will work though because of the OS on 2 hdd in one computer might conflict)

6 is where I'm at now. What a pain in the a** that is!
The old drive will boot to XPHome (after calling MS to reactivate) but most of the internal addons (Tuner card, NIC, etc.) won't even get recognized! Tried re installing drivers and get the "Not XP certified" message, even though they were working in the old sysytem.

I'm going to CompUSA tomorrow and getting an external USB2.0 enclosure.
My wife will then figure out what data she wants, and while she's doing that, I'll reset the new sysytem back to factory.
Once my wife is done with her 'homework' I'll set up the external (old) drive, using the transfer wizard, swap over that data and reinstall the third party software.
I'm figuring the better part of Saturday will be set to do that.

Thanks all for the responses!