View Full Version : Installing old HD into new PC, please help?
arnoldgenes
11-08-2006, 12:11 AM
Hello everyone, this is my first post here after watching some old school kevin rose while drinking some 40s of course. Anyhow I just purchased a Dell Dimension E521,Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2.00GHz, 512Kx2). I want to install my old HD into my new PC. My old PC is a HP Pavilion 9694C...old....really old (circa 2000). How exactly would I go about doing this? Any and all info is certainly appreciated.
sevver
11-08-2006, 01:39 AM
Remove hard drive out of old pc, remove hard drive out of new pc, put old hard drive into new pc, put new pc reinstallation cd into new pc cd rom drive, boot new pc to cd, reinstall.
striker1211
11-08-2006, 02:41 AM
Since the old hard drive is probably set to master set the oldy to slave. Now throw it on the same cable that the newer hard drive is on. If there's something else on the same cable as your newer hdd set that device to master and put it on the other chain, then continue putting oldy on the same chain as the newy drive.
arnoldgenes
11-08-2006, 09:54 PM
Since the old hard drive is probably set to master set the oldy to slave. Now throw it on the same cable that the newer hard drive is on. If there's something else on the same cable as your newer hdd set that device to master and put it on the other chain, then continue putting oldy on the same chain as the newy drive.
So thats it, cables and chains? I thought I would've had to figure out whether or not the old hd would be compatible with the new motherboard or something like that. So basically just plug and play huh? Are most HD's compatible with any motherboad? Im inferring that I set this slave/master stuff through the BIOS right?
darknessgp
11-08-2006, 10:23 PM
So thats it, cables and chains? I thought I would've had to figure out whether or not the old hd would be compatible with the new motherboard or something like that. So basically just plug and play huh? Are most HD's compatible with any motherboad? Im inferring that I set this slave/master stuff through the BIOS right?
unless it's a server or really ancient(both would lead me to think a SCSI drive). Your old hdd should just use parallel ATA. Newer drives are moving to Serial ATA, as it's faster, smaller cable, and hot-swappable (you can add/remove HDDs while the computer is running).
arnoldgenes
11-08-2006, 10:44 PM
Well thanks for all the info guys. I will keep you posted on how it goes when the new pc arrives, hopefully I wont need any trobleshooting.
striker1211
11-09-2006, 05:15 AM
So thats it, cables and chains? I thought I would've had to figure out whether or not the old hd would be compatible with the new motherboard or something like that. So basically just plug and play huh? Are most HD's compatible with any motherboad? Im inferring that I set this slave/master stuff through the BIOS right?
The old hard drive, if it uses the same type of cable, will work with the new one. You set the slave and master physically on the chain and with a jumper on the back of the drive, this is how the cable locations will look:
[MOBO]-----------------------[SLAVE]---------[MASTER]
Notice the distance between the slave and mobo.
Here is a decent older tutorial:
http://www.helpwithpcs.com/upgrading/install-hard-drive.htm
You don't have to mess with the bios, but you will probably have to find some tweezers.