Will an xp HD run a a D Drive on a Win 7 Machine??

[mr Ed 650]

I have a hard drive from my Dell Inspirion 530. The motherboard crapped out and I can get another Inpirion 530 with win 7 from a friend. Can I use my old XP formated HD as a D drive on the win 7 machine so I may recover my data?
Mr Ed

 

[maxwellmelon]

yes. windows 7 will read windows xp file system fine.

 

[Paperdoc]

It may depend on exactly which model you are getting from the friend. There were several models in the Inspiron 530 series, according to the4 series' manual. The models 530b and 530d each had only teo SATA ports on the mobo, and those probably are used by the single SATa HDD and an optical drive. that leaves no unused SATA port for an additional HDD. But the models 530, 5301 and 530c all have four SATA ports on the mobo, so it is likely at least one of those would be open for use.

As long as your mobo has an unused SATA port you should be able to connect the old drive to the new machine. You also need a SATA power input connector from the PSU, of course, to provide power. But even if there are no unused connectors of that type, you can by a SATA power splitter to convert a used SATA power output into two, thus creating an unused one. The manual indicates that there are physical spaces side by side at the front for two HDD units, so you should be able to mount the second one.

When you do get it all hooked up, Windows should discover the new HDD and assign it a letter name. It may NOT be D:. It will be the next letter not already in use for something else, For your purpose of copying old files to save them, that will not matter.

In unusual situations it is possible the new machines BIOS might decide that the OLD drive you just installed should be used to boot from, instead of the original drive in the new machine. If that happens, you can adjust the machine's Boot Priority order in BIOS Setup to use only the new machine's original HDD and NOT use the added old HDD for booting at all.

Once you have recovered from the old HDD EVERYTHING you need and moved it to another place, you might want to consider wiping that old drive clean and Initializing it as a data storage only drive so that you have additional storage space.

 

[mr Ed 650]

My fans wouldn't spin so I checked the P/S with a tester and it revealed on of the 24 pin connector pins was dead. I bought new 400W P/S and fans spin for about 3 seconds and stop, then they repeat this cycle over and over. I assume it is the motherboard. I know, don't ever assume Any ideas???

 

[Paperdoc]

Now you're into troubleshooting. One of the best ways to proceed is to take all components out of the case, and get a dry insulating surface to temporarily assemble parts into a basic system The technique is called "breadboarding". Basically you start with the very minimum collection of parts together and try to start it up. If it fails, you know the problem must be among that limited collection. If it works, you shut down, add one more component, and repeat. Keep it up until you fail - then you have a major suspect in the last item added.

 

[mr Ed 650]

Thanks Paperdoc, I will try this and see what happens. mite be the weekend as the rest of the week is pretty full. Will let you know what happens