Question Moving HDD and optical drive from old to new desktop?

[drakeducaine]

Hello all. I've purchased a refurbished HP Envy prebuild (HP ENVY TE01-3197C, specs are here, PSU is described as 400W 80 plus gold certified). This system has a 1TB SSD and no optical drive, but it looks like there's a door in the case to add an optical drive in.

I'd like to take my optical drive and 1TB SATA HDD from my old computer and add it in to this machine. I'm familiar with rooting around inside a case but haven't done it in a while, and my old machine (another HP Envy) is about a decade old at this point. So, a few questions:

1. Since there's an SSD already in the machine, can I expect to be able to add the HDD and optical drive? Are the connections going to be available on the motherboard or do I need a SATA expansion card, etc.?

2. The HDD is the boot drive from my old computer and has Windows 10 on it (new machine has Windows 11). Will I run into issues using it as-is? The power supply blew in my old computer so I have no way to uninstall or remove files from the old HDD.

3. Will I need to reformat the HDD to be able to use it? I'd need not have to, I'd like to keep using it as storage for the files already on there.

4. Should I add the components to the new machine before booting it up and setting it up first, or should I do that and then open it up to add the components? Can I add them both at the same time or one at a time?

5. Will I need to change anything in BIOS to recognize the new components? I don't remember having to do this when I upgraded my previous machine, but it's been a while and I may have forgotten...

Thanks in advance for advice!

 

[Cj-tech]

Hello all. I've purchased a refurbished HP Envy prebuild (HP ENVY TE01-3197C, specs are here, PSU is described as 400W 80 plus gold certified). This system has a 1TB SSD and no optical drive, but it looks like there's a door in the case to add an optical drive in.

I'd like to take my optical drive and 1TB SATA HDD from my old computer and add it in to this machine. I'm familiar with rooting around inside a case but haven't done it in a while, and my old machine (another HP Envy) is about a decade old at this point. So, a few questions:

1. Since there's an SSD already in the machine, can I expect to be able to add the HDD and optical drive? Are the connections going to be available on the motherboard or do I need a SATA expansion card, etc.?

2. The HDD is the boot drive from my old computer and has Windows 10 on it (new machine has Windows 11). Will I run into issues using it as-is? The power supply blew in my old computer so I have no way to uninstall or remove files from the old HDD.

3. Will I need to reformat the HDD to be able to use it? I'd need not have to, I'd like to keep using it as storage for the files already on there.

4. Should I add the components to the new machine before booting it up and setting it up first, or should I do that and then open it up to add the components? Can I add them both at the same time or one at a time?

5. Will I need to change anything in BIOS to recognize the new components? I don't remember having to do this when I upgraded my previous machine, but it's been a while and I may have forgotten...

Thanks in advance for advice!

1. According to that link, the currently installed SSD is a M2 drive. Additionally, it does not mention any SATA interfaces on the board.
2. The HDD may or may not work on the new computer. It is recommended to backup all files and move them to the new computer’s SSD. However, doing so will likely require a USB to SATA adapter since the new PC does not include it.
3. You should be able to continue using the HDD but if it is encrypted, you will need that encryption key to decrypt.
4. You cannot add the HDD to the machine. You’ll need something like this for a 3.5” HDD or this for a 2.5” HDD. If in doubt, the 3.5” one will work for both.
5. With an external drive, you can plug it in after booting to access the files. My suggestion is to backup all important files, copy them to the new PC, wipe the HDD, then copy them back to the HDD. This will remove the Windows 10 installation from the HDD and stop the PC from detecting it as a boot drive (which can cause issues).

Please also remember to keep backups of data. If your HDD is dead, you are not going to be able to get anything off it.

Also note that using the HDD as the boot drive for the new PC will make it considerably slower. It is also almost guaranteed to cause issues with driver conflicts and other system file issues.

is about a decade old at this point

Also, using the HDD as storage for your new PC might not be a good idea if it’s over 10 years old.

 

[CountMike]

Hello all. I've purchased a refurbished HP Envy prebuild (HP ENVY TE01-3197C, specs are here, PSU is described as 400W 80 plus gold certified). This system has a 1TB SSD and no optical drive, but it looks like there's a door in the case to add an optical drive in.

I'd like to take my optical drive and 1TB SATA HDD from my old computer and add it in to this machine. I'm familiar with rooting around inside a case but haven't done it in a while, and my old machine (another HP Envy) is about a decade old at this point. So, a few questions:

1. Since there's an SSD already in the machine, can I expect to be able to add the HDD and optical drive? Are the connections going to be available on the motherboard or do I need a SATA expansion card, etc.?

2. The HDD is the boot drive from my old computer and has Windows 10 on it (new machine has Windows 11). Will I run into issues using it as-is? The power supply blew in my old computer so I have no way to uninstall or remove files from the old HDD.

3. Will I need to reformat the HDD to be able to use it? I'd need not have to, I'd like to keep using it as storage for the files already on there.

4. Should I add the components to the new machine before booting it up and setting it up first, or should I do that and then open it up to add the components? Can I add them both at the same time or one at a time?

5. Will I need to change anything in BIOS to recognize the new components? I don't remember having to do this when I upgraded my previous machine, but it's been a while and I may have forgotten...

Thanks in advance for advice!

1. I can't see any SATA ports on that MB only 2 x M.2 slots.
MB has an PCIe v3x1 slot in which you can use this for instance to use HDD and ODD

Amazon.com

2. You can just connect HDD at the adapter and it should work for storage but you would be loosing a lot of space occupied by now useless windows files and probably several just as useless partition, Any programs installed on it will be equally useless.
3, You don't have to format it but as I said you'd loose a lot of space. You can deal with it later once you have it running,
One way would be to create a partition, move all valuable files to it, delete unnecessary partitions and than merge them in one,
4. and 5. No you don't have to do anything except maybe ensure that SSD is default BOOT disk.

 

[geofelt]

Can you supply some photos?
Exterior and interior.
There may be no way to physically install either the dvd drive or a HDD in the case.

To use those devices you probably can run them if you use a usb to sata adapter cable.

The old windows HDD should be ok.
You can just delete the windows files and any other data that you don't want.

 

[faalin]

According to the spec sheet, you only have 1 M.2 for a hard drive, the second M.2 is for a wifi card.

Looking at google for that board, the pictures are showing 3 sata ports, a dark blue, light blue, and white port.

 

[drakeducaine]

Can you supply some photos?
Exterior and interior.
There may be no way to physically install either the dvd drive or a HDD in the case.
To use those devices you probably can run them if you use a usb to sata adapter cable.

Thanks for the advice. I don't have the computer yet delivered to take photos of the interior, exterior stock photos are here. Looks like there's a flap for the optical drive on the front of the case. Would a USB to SATA cable allow for the internal installation of either component? I'm thinking both would have to be external to access a USB port without the cable snaking from the interior component to plug into an exterior USB port.

1. You should be able to continue using the HDD but if it is encrypted, you will need that encryption key to decrypt.
2. You cannot add the HDD to the machine. You’ll need something like this for a 3.5” HDD or this for a 2.5” HDD. If in doubt, the 3.5” one will work for both.
3. With an external drive, you can plug it in after booting to access the files. My suggestion is to backup all important files, copy them to the new PC, wipe the HDD, then copy them back to the HDD. This will remove the Windows 10 installation from the HDD and stop the PC from detecting it as a boot drive (which can cause issues).

Thank you also for the advice. HDD is a 3.5" and shouldn't be encrypted. I have the data backed up (except for a few files altered more recently) to a different external drive using Windows and that'll take care of most of it. But I would still like to access the internal HDD to get those more recent files. I would be pulling files off the HDD to the SDD, reformatting the HDD, and moving some files back as you suggested. I appreciate the warning about the old drive (have had a few fail on me before); I wouldn't be using it for anything critical - maybe a secondary backup to my primary backup on the external drive. I figure if the drive still works, it wouldn't hurt anything to add it to my new machine?

1. I can't see any SATA ports on that MB only 2 x M.2 slots.
MB has an PCIe v3x1 slot in which you can use this for instance to use HDD and ODD

Amazon.com

2. You can just connect HDD at the adapter and it should work for storage but you would be loosing a lot of space occupied by now useless windows files and probably several just as useless partition, Any programs installed on it will be equally useless.
3, You don't have to format it but as I said you'd loose a lot of space. You can deal with it later once you have it running,
One way would be to create a partition, move all valuable files to it, delete unnecessary partitions and than merge them in one,
4. and 5. No you don't have to do anything except maybe ensure that SSD is default BOOT disk.

Thanks for the suggestions. I do plan on eventually reformatting the drive once I've pulled some things off to the SDD. In case I can't fit the HDD in the case, would something like this work to pull files off of the drive without having to plug it into the board? https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-SATA-USB-Cable-USB3S2SAT3CB/dp/B00HJZJI84?th=1

According to the spec sheet, you only have 1 M.2 for a hard drive, the second M.2 is for a wifi card.

Looking at google for that board, the pictures are showing 3 sata ports, a dark blue, light blue, and white port.

Thanks! I tried googling around to decipher if the port colors indicate where different components should be plugged in. Am I correct that the optical drive would plug into the light blue port, and the second data drive (the HDD) would plug into the white port? Does this have anything to do with how BIOS executes boot order?

 

[Misgar]

The computer should be switched off and disconnected from the mains before connecting the HDD and optical drive. Although SATA drives can sometimes be hot-plugged, there's a chance you might damage something if you connect the drives "live".

The SATA port colours might indicate different speeds, e.g. SATA1, SATA2 or SATA3. It won't make much difference what speed each SATA port runs at for a 1TB HDD or an optical drive, but if you ever fit a SATA SSD to these SATA ports, it will run faster on a SATA3 port. You may need to buy additional SATA data cables and SATA power adapters/splitters.

If the HDD has a bootable copy of Windows 10, make sure the drive boot order in the BIOS stays set to boot from the Windows 11 SSD. There's no need to reformat the 1TB drive. It will wipe all your data. You might find some files/folders on the HDD are not accessible at first, until you change Permissions on these folders.

 

[geofelt]

It would appear that you can install a 3.5" HDD,
Sata ports are generally interchangeable so far as functionality goes.
It is possible that one operates at 6mbps speed and the other at 3.
No problem switching.

It also looks like a dvd drive can be installed, but it looks like it might need to be a slim drive.
I you may or may not get the needed adapter to install such a drive.

 

[Cj-tech]

Thanks for the suggestions. I do plan on eventually reformatting the drive once I've pulled some things off to the SDD. In case I can't fit the HDD in the case, would something like this work to pull files off of the drive without having to plug it into the board? https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-SATA-USB-Cable-USB3S2SAT3CB/dp/B00HJZJI84?th=1

It sounds like you’ve got everything figured out mostly. However, if the HDD is in fact a 3.5” drive, you’ll want to get a SATA adapter with an external power source. Obviously installing it internally would be the best option, so I’d wait for the PC to arrive first.

If you do happen to need a 3.5” adapter, something like this would work: https://a.co/d/a6TpXNi

 

[drakeducaine]

Update:
Was very happy to receive my computer, open the case, and find not only a mounting cage for a 3.5" drive but SATA power and data cables ready and waiting!

For the curious, there are two SATA power ports (and one cable with one plug included) and one data cable with two plugs.
There is, however, NO flap on the case for an optical drive. Small potatoes at this point to have to get an external, all things considered.

Many thanks to you all on this thread for your help!