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What happens when I connect an old HDD to my new rig?

GermanPCBuilder
By GermanPCBuilder
in Storage Devices
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So I´ve found my old PC which still has all it´s old components inside. There´s also an old HDD that still has some more or less important ( less ) data on it. I want to know whatß´s still on there so my thought is to just hook it up to an existing SATA port on my mainboard and to the power and I´m good, but thereßs also Windows 7 onh the HDD and I´ve got Windows 10 on my PC. My question now is what happens when i connct the old HDD to my new PC? Will I have trouble when booting, will it wwork fine? Can i connect the HDD to the PC after im done with booting, so that the PC boots with Win10 and then I can see al the data that´s still on the drive?

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Well it wont start on fire if that's what you're asking... but there's only one way to find out!

[FS][US] Corsair H115i 280mm AIO-AMD $60+shipping

 

 

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2 minutes ago, GermanPCBuilder said:

So I´ve found my old PC which still has all it´s old components inside. There´s also an old HDD that still has some more or less important ( less ) data on it. I want to know whatß´s still on there so my thought is to just hook it up to an existing SATA port on my mainboard and to the power and I´m good, but thereßs also Windows 7 onh the HDD and I´ve got Windows 10 on my PC. My question now is what happens when i connct the old HDD to my new PC? Will I have trouble when booting, will it wwork fine? Can i connect the HDD to the PC after im done with booting, so that the PC boots with Win10 and then I can see al the data that´s still on the drive?

If you have a UEFI bios it probably won't boot into windows 7. So you might be good on that part if not boot from the boot manager from the start up and select the drive that has windows 10 on it.

CPU: Intel i7 7700K | GPU: ROG Strix GTX 1080Ti | PSU: Seasonic X-1250 (faulty) | Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB 3200Mhz 16GB | OS Drive: Western Digital Black NVMe 250GB | Game Drive(s): Samsung 970 Evo 500GB, Hitachi 7K3000 3TB 3.5" | Motherboard: Gigabyte Z270x Gaming 7 | Case: Fractal Design Define S (No Window and modded front Panel) | Monitor(s): Dell S2716DG G-Sync 144Hz, Acer R240HY 60Hz (Dead) | Keyboard: G.SKILL RIPJAWS KM780R MX | Mouse: Steelseries Sensei 310 (Striked out parts are sold or dead, awaiting zen2 parts)

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Just now, XenosTech said:

If you have a UEFI bios it probably won't boot into windows 7. So you might be good on that part if not boot from the boot manager from the start up and select the drive that has windows 10 on it.

and then i can just look what data i have on the HDD over Win10 without any problems?

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Just make sure the drive with Windows 10 is first in the boot order and you should be fine. If you have issues with booting, you can always manually boot from the W10 drive by selecting it and booting from the BIOS. 

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1 minute ago, GermanPCBuilder said:

and then i can just look what data i have on the HDD over Win10 without any problems?

Pretty much.

CPU: Intel i7 7700K | GPU: ROG Strix GTX 1080Ti | PSU: Seasonic X-1250 (faulty) | Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB 3200Mhz 16GB | OS Drive: Western Digital Black NVMe 250GB | Game Drive(s): Samsung 970 Evo 500GB, Hitachi 7K3000 3TB 3.5" | Motherboard: Gigabyte Z270x Gaming 7 | Case: Fractal Design Define S (No Window and modded front Panel) | Monitor(s): Dell S2716DG G-Sync 144Hz, Acer R240HY 60Hz (Dead) | Keyboard: G.SKILL RIPJAWS KM780R MX | Mouse: Steelseries Sensei 310 (Striked out parts are sold or dead, awaiting zen2 parts)

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Since you already have Win10. Just plug it in (while PC is off) and boot to Win10. The other drive will show up just as that, other drive. Just like normal HDD would show with SSD OS drive. The issue only come if you try to boot with it.

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1 hour ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

Since you already have Win10. Just plug it in (while PC is off) and boot to Win10. The other drive will show up just as that, other drive. Just like normal HDD would show with SSD OS drive. The issue only come if you try to boot with it.

Good ok, but just because im curious, what would happen when I connect it while the PC is running? I mean it works with USB sticks as well (lol)

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5 minutes ago, GermanPCBuilder said:

Good ok, but just because im curious, what would happen when I connect it while the PC is running? I mean it works with USB sticks as well (lol)

If it's in a USB enclosure: it'll work fine.

 

If it's in an esata enclosure: it should show up fine, but depending on your motherboard might not. E-sata support hotplugging but some older motherboards didn't implement it correctly.

 

If you're plugging it into internal SATA it's hit or miss. SATA doesn't officially support hotplugging but certain motherboard manufacturers have set up their ports/controllers to work with hotplugging.

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39 minutes ago, GermanPCBuilder said:

Good ok, but just because im curious, what would happen when I connect it while the PC is running? I mean it works with USB sticks as well (lol)

Nothing. It won't show up in windows unless the SATA port is set to be hotswap in BIOS. Now, if you would disconnect drive fron non-hotswap port while it was running -> very high possibility of major data corruption.

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