Can I trensfer a old hard drive from another pc to my old pc.

AorusXBroly · November 19, 2019

A coworker of mine has a problem with hes pc, He wants to trensfer his date from his old hard drive to a disc but his pc is not working. I tryd to fix it by myself but it seems that the power supply is broken. So now I want to put his old hard drive to my old pc. (Our pcs are from the 2000's)

1) He put his all data in the C hard drive with the windows instelled, So the question is can I instell this hard drive on my pc, and how to do so?

Thank you in advnce.

Master Disaster · November 19, 2019

Yep, just plug it in alongside yours, at boot go into BIOS and make sure your drive is set as the boot drive then boot Windows and the other drive will show in My Computer as the D drive.

If you try and boot his drive in your PC the chances are it will BSOD and refuse to boot.

Be warned though, to access his personal folders you'll need to edit permissions which could mean that if you put the drive back in his PC Windows will throw a fit and might make him create a new user account.

jrsall92 · November 19, 2019

Alternatively to @Master Disaster's straight forward solution, there is also the option to use your pc, with his hard drive like normal, i.e. as if he was using your pc all along. To do that, attach his hd to your pc and grab a bootable media of whatever windows version he was using. Boot from it and repair windows on his drive. Exit, change boot order in bios to have his as first, boot into it et voila, he can access his data as normal, no need to change permissions.

Although, I've got to say, the most easy and surefire way to get his data and figure if the PSU was the issue is to lend him yours (PSU). If it's the issue you suspect, the pc will boot like normal, otherwise you have a different problem in your hands and any of the above will work.

Edit: Be extra careful when moving an hdd, any abrupt vibration (i.e. in a bag/cart with wheels on any uneven surface) might cause bad sectors/break the hdd. Always put it in an anti-static bag and wrap it in bubble wrap, better yet, don't move it if possible at all.