Question Problem trying to use old SSD on a new PC ?

[jdog7400]

I got a newer PC from a friend for my mom to use for work. The “new” PC came with a 128GB NVMe SSD which I put Windows 11 on and was going to keep that as the boot drive. Given my mom has a lot of work and personal stuff on her current PC I thought it would be easiest to just bring that 500GB SD into the new system and let it operate off that.

The SSD has Windows 8 on it and it seems to run fine when in the old PC, but when I put it in the new PC it’s recognized and even seems to acknowledge that there’s all kinds of files on it, but when I try to get to anything on it all I can find are Windows files.

Is there something I can do to use just the SSD or do I need to upload to a cloud and then copy over to the new PC? Thanks I’m advanced!

 

[Lutfij]

The “new” PC came with a 128GB NVMe SSD which I put Windows 11 on and was going to keep that as the boot drive.

Since you have two functioning systems, I'd advise on migrating all mission critical data of your mother's existing system onto a removable drive. You can then wipe the 500GB drive, remove all partitions and have that as a secondary drive on the new machine.

If you want to recycle your older OS drive on the new platform, without reinstalling your OS, you're going to end up with a lot of grey hair or a bald head, and in the process corrupt a functional OS(which was functional on your older system).

 

[USAFRet]

I got a newer PC from a friend for my mom to use for work. The “new” PC came with a 128GB NVMe SSD which I put Windows 11 on and was going to keep that as the boot drive. Given my mom has a lot of work and personal stuff on her current PC I thought it would be easiest to just bring that 500GB SD into the new system and let it operate off that.

The SSD has Windows 8 on it and it seems to run fine when in the old PC, but when I put it in the new PC it’s recognized and even seems to acknowledge that there’s all kinds of files on it, but when I try to get to anything on it all I can find are Windows files.

Is there something I can do to use just the SSD or do I need to upload to a cloud and then copy over to the new PC? Thanks I’m advanced!

Moving that 500GB drive with Win 8 to a new system will almost certainly fail.

There are 4 things in play here:
1. The OS
2. installed Applications
3. Personal data files
4. OS licensing and activation

Assuming the old PC is still working, copy the personal files to elsewhere. Cloud, a different drive, whatever.
This safeguards the irreplaceable personal data.

In the new PC...a 128GB SSD is pretty much too small these days.
Make model of this drive?

 

[evermorex76]

I'm a little confused. Are you trying to boot the new PC from the 500GB SSD now? Or using the 500GB PC as a secondary drive just for storage? I don't understand what "let it operate off that" means. Are you trying to move her files from the 500GB drive to the 128GB? (Are you sure that's even big enough to use? 128GB is tiny these days and not enough for most people.)

Do you mean there is no C:\Users\<momsname> folder on the 500GB drive? Keep in mind that if you're looking for things like Desktop, Documents, Pictures, they won't be directly under that user folder if she was using OneDrive. They'll be in the OneDrive folder, and not all the files may even be actually cached on the PC locally. If she was using OneDrive you can just boot to the 128GB drive and log in with her account and her files will be available.

 

[CountMike]

Got a newer pc from a friend for my mom to use for work. The “new” pc came with a 128gb nvme drive, which I put windows 11 on and was going to keep that as the boot drive. Given my mom has a lot of work and personal stuff on her current pc I thought it would be easiest to just then bring that 500gb ssd into the new system and let it operate off that. The ssd is running windows 8 and seems to run fine when in the old pc. When I put it in the new, it’s recognized and even seems to acknowledge that there’s all kinds of files, but when I try to get to anything on it all I can find are windows files. Is there something I can do to use just the ssd or do I need to upload to a cloud and then copy over in the new pc? Thanks I’m advanced!

Are you just adding that disk to your PC?