Old HD in newer computer

[yipykyah]

Not sure if this is the right section for this, but, I'm not a computer guru.

The wife and I have two computers, one older Compaq with XP and a somewhat newer HP with windows 7. The older computer wouldn't start up, so I took a peek inside. After extensive research on the internet, I found a troubleshooting page that helped me figure out that the bulged capacitors on the mother board means that the mother board is toast. I read where replacing it would be more expensive than it is worth.

I read where you can have two hard drives in one computer, and saw a short video explaining it. Can one hard drive be used and then the other? Problem is the older hard drive is IDE and the newer computer is SATA. And, the windows versions are different. If so, are there any parts I need?

 

[Outlander_04]

You should be able to get a pci-e card with an IDE adapter .
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815158084
That would let you read data files on the driver once you had booted to windows 7 . So you can save them .


You will not be able to boot from that drive if it is attached to any other computer

 

[megamanx00]

What you can do is use an enclosure to use it as an external hard drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817388001&cm_re=ide_hard_drive_enclosure-_-17-388-001-_-Product

That would allow you to access whatever files you needed. Of course if the drive is pretty old I wouldn't store anything to critical on it but it could be used to shuffle files between computers or access stuff you also have burned off to a DVD somewhere.