Question Moving various image, audio and video files from old bootable SSD drive to new machine

[samrich884]

Hi all,

My computers no longer functioning as it should, so I'm looking into buying a new machine as this one isn't worth investing more money/time in.

If I were to buy a new machine complete with a new SSD drive and a fresh install of windows, would i be able to plug in my old SSD drive from my old machine (via a USB 3.0) adapter and have the new machine recognise it as a regular SSD storage drive?

I'm not looking to copy over the OS or any programs... just a selection of family photos and videos, and a few audio files.

The only obstacle i can think of is that my broken machine requires a login code to enter windows, so would this mean that the files are encrypted somehow?

Thanks in advance!

 

[SkyNetRising]

so would this mean that the files are encrypted somehow?

Unless you have manually encrypted your files or have set up full drive encryption, then they should not be encrypted.

How exactly is your old computer not working? Could be some simple fix to get it working again.
Please list full specs of your pc.

 

[samrich884]

Unless you have manually encrypted your files or have set up full drive encryption, then they should not be encrypted.

How exactly is your old computer not working? Could be some simple fix to get it working again.
Please list full specs of your pc.

Thanks so much for the reply. I don't believe there's any encryption at all past the standard Windows login screen so i might be in luck. It's a long story how i got to this point but if you fancy a read then i would greatly appreciate any advice!

My computer:
Windows 10 machine with a 1080ti linked to a 1440p monitor via Mini Display Port cable. Gigabyte z97zn-wifi mobo. i5 4960k CPU

My computer went into sleep mode the other evening without me realising. I forgot about it and tried to turn it on the next day but no signal was being picked up by the display.

I've had this issue before and usually solved it by Power Cycling the machine and monitor, and then if that doesn't work... switching to a HDMI cable via the mother board ports and booting it in Safe Mode, then reinstalling NVIDIA drivers and restarting the machine.

The problem now is that I switched to an SSD a few months ago, which means getting into safe mode isn't as simple as simply hammering a key on startup (as it now uses UEFI). There are menus to navigate but I can't see anything on the screen! I tried plugging in my screen into every HDMI port on the mother board, and even borrowed a monitor. Still no luck.

I eventually got a bit desperate after realising that there was no chance i was going to start it in safe mode. So i took out my SSD and plugged in my orginial HDD that the SSD was cloned from. It might be worth noting that i also unplugged and reinstalled my ram sticks to get to the SATA cable (although im not sure if doing this resulted in where i am now).

Anyway.... No luck with the old HDD idea, so i plugged the SSD drive back in. No picture still, but now it powers on for about 10 seconds, then turns itself off and restarts. It does this over and over until i manually switch it off, so I'm assuming its now failing to boot to windows. My only thought is that the old HDD is still in legacy bios, and my SSD is UEFI so I've naffed something up there.

Unfortunately I'm still not getting a picture on my screen to see whats going on! And now i have a machine that won't even boot into windows (although i couldn't tell if it was before)


If i do get a new computer I'll probably sell the old DDR3 ram sticks, the 4960k CPU and maybe the motherboard (assuming that i discover the mobo isnt the problem). I'll use my 1080ti in the new machine as graphic cards are crazy money at the moment. I'll take my wanted files off the old SSD and then reformat it and use it as a secondary in the new machine also.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Unfortunately I'm still not getting a picture on my screen to see whats going on! And now i have a machine that won't even boot into windows (although i couldn't tell if it was before)

What SSD, HDD, PSU are you using?

Remove discrete graphics card physically from your pc and try to boot using integrated graphics.
Usually with discrete graphics present, integrated graphics gets disabled.

I'd suspect your graphics card to be the problem there.

 

[samrich884]

What SSD, HDD, PSU are you using?

Remove discrete graphics card physically from your pc and try to boot using integrated graphics.
Usually with discrete graphics present, integrated graphics gets disabled.

I'd suspect your graphics card to be the problem there.

Parts arrreee...

Crucial mx500 2tb SSD.
HDD is/was a Toshiba 2TB DT01ACA200 which has been sat in the box since i switched to SSD.
PSU is a Corsair VS650

Ah yes sorry should have mentioned this also... I took the graphics card out too at one point and tried using the intel integrated graphics but no luck. My thoughts as to why it wasn't displaying a picture is because my PC is set to display at 1440p and the HDMI maxes out at 1080p. This was usually my reason for booting in safe mode so that the resolution was dropped enough to send a signal through HDMI.

Again, thanks so much for looking into this! I really appreciate your input so far.

 

[samrich884]

Also worth noting the one thing i haven't tried yet:

The Motherboard has a DVI-I output which i could aquire a Dual-Link DVI-D cable for. The Motherboard and CPU should support 1440p output so this was my next thought before i went and ripped the hard drive out and caused those boot problems for myself!


edit

One other idea...

This is already way above my comfort zone and capability, but what if...

I reset the CMOS on the motherboard. Hook up the old HDD drive - now these should both be booting with legacy bios. This then means i should be able to boot into safe mode by mashing a button and reinstall NVIDIA drivers.

Theoretically my display should start working again with the new drivers and HDD installed.

The down side of this is that now my Motherboard is back in legacy bios mode and I'm not sure if i can easy update it to talk to my SSD again... (i had this issue before when switching to SSD) so then i'd have to copy any new files from the SSD to the hard-drive, then reformat my SSD as a legacy bios drive, re-clone my hard drive to SSD and then set it to UEFI using the built in Windows 10 Run command.

It all sounds super super long winded...