Old Hard Drive installed on a newer computer

[fordprefect42]

I bought a new computer because my older computer bit the dust. I gutted it out and took the video card, memory and hard drive out of it.

The specs -
New computer - Windows 7 Professional SP1, 750 GB SATA HD
Old computer - Windows Vista Home Premium SP2, 320 GB SATA HD

I would love to transfer my pictures, music, videos and documents off the old HD onto the new one and reformat it as extra storage. Any help on how to do this would be welcomed. I have an idea, but I ask just so I know if I would be doing it right or wrong. Thanks!

 

[alyoshka]

The easiest way would be to use the old drive in an external USB drive enclosure. But if you want to go about it the other way, all you need to do is put the old HDD onto a SATA header on the Board, plug in the power and switch on the rig.
Let it boot into Win7, then the newly inserted old HDD will show up in my computer, just browse to the locations where all your old stuff was and copy it onto a newly created folder in the Win 7 HDD.
After that move out of old drive completely, right click on the Old HDD in My Computer and select Format.
That ought to do the trick.
Hopefully, encryption was off in the Vista rig, so you won't have a problem accessing the materials on the older drive.

 

[fordprefect42]

Thanks. Encryption was off, so it will be a piece of cake. Either way sounds easy, and the latter is what I had in mind, but putting it into an external drive enclosure sounds even easier.

 

[alyoshka]

Welcome, and if you do run into a problem you can ask us from there on.

 

[winoutreach5]

Perhaps the easiest way to transfer files and settings over from the old computer running Windows XP over to the new computer running Windows 7 is through the Windows Easy Transfer utility.

There is also the Windows 7 Upgrade and Migration Guide available from the TechNet site that offers a bit more insight to the process and options available.

Jessica
Windows Outreach Team – IT Pro

 

[Johnnydee]

Hi - I liked your response to the above problem. I have done the same thing, but my windows 7 computer cannot access the Vista drive - wants to format it. It show up on My Computer but I cannot get to it. any idea why this would happen to me?

Thanks!!

The easiest way would be to use the old drive in an external USB drive enclosure. But if you want to go about it the other way, all you need to do is put the old HDD onto a SATA header on the Board, plug in the power and switch on the rig.
Let it boot into Win7, then the newly inserted old HDD will show up in my computer, just browse to the locations where all your old stuff was and copy it onto a newly created folder in the Win 7 HDD.
After that move out of old drive completely, right click on the Old HDD in My Computer and select Format.
That ought to do the trick.
Hopefully, encryption was off in the Vista rig, so you won't have a problem accessing the materials on the older drive.

 

[alyoshka]

If you mean by "Cannot access it", that you can't even browse the contents at all and it immediately pops up that sign which says you need to format the drive, then you've got a drive that's going bad.
Have you tried accessing it in a external USB enclosure also and got the same thing?

 

[Johnnydee]

Thanks for the reply. I have it in an external USB enclosure and I can see it in My Computer and it has a drive letter assigned. Under device manager it lists the data as RAW. I am now scanning it with recovery software and see what it comes up with. I also booted Ubuntu from the cd drive but it couldn't see the drive. Any ideas? I don't really feel like mounting it internally in my new tower. Thanks again.


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If you mean by "Cannot access it", that you can't even browse the contents at all and it immediately pops up that sign which says you need to format the drive, then you've got a drive that's going bad.
Have you tried accessing it in a external USB enclosure also and got the same thing?

 

[alyoshka]

Well, if it says it's RAW then it needs to be formatted as it is not being able to access any info on it.
Definitely showing hardware failure. You have very few options left.

 

[StellarPhoenixS]

usually there should not be an issue of getting access to data with in Windows operating system but hard drive should be healthy. It seems to me that your old computer was not in running condition. you can also try some data recovery software and using that you should be able to recover your data in the exact way.

 

[Paperdoc]

Let me disagree with alyoshka. Seems to me that, when a HDD is shown in Disk Management as having a "RAW" File system, that is usually from a bit of corrupted data in the Partition Table or the Directory and sector use tables, and NOT a hardware problem from a failing HDD. The solution for the corrupted data issue is to use data recovery software on the HDD to retrieve copies of all its files. Then, when you've got all the data copied off to another storage device, you can safely use HDD diagnostic utilities on the "faulty" unit, including data-destructive tools, to determine whether it actually does have a hardware failure. If not, it is completely safe to delete all its previous partition(s) and Create and Format one or more new ones so you can continue to use the HDD.

I see you say you're already trying some data recovery software. For reference, in case that does not solve your problem, check this web page:

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-raw-drive.htm

It outlines how to use the EaseUS software for this job.

 

[alyoshka]

Let me disagree with alyoshka. Seems to me that, when a HDD is shown in Disk Management as having a "RAW" File system, that is usually from a bit of corrupted data in the Partition Table or the Directory and sector use tables, and NOT a hardware problem from a failing HDD. The solution for the corrupted data issue is to use data recovery software on the HDD to retrieve copies of all its files. Then, when you've got all the data copied off to another storage device, you can safely use HDD diagnostic utilities on the "faulty" unit, including data-destructive tools, to determine whether it actually does have a hardware failure. If not, it is completely safe to delete all its previous partition(s) and Create and Format one or more new ones so you can continue to use the HDD.

I see you say you're already trying some data recovery software. For reference, in case that does not solve your problem, check this web page:

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-raw-drive.htm

It outlines how to use the EaseUS software for this job.

That's why I said very few options left, the USB external thing would not let him do much IF the drive is failing, but it will allow him to run tests and get to the exact problem.
He still has to answer whether or not he's tried the external USB enclosure and what was the result of it.