Using Old Hard Drive in New computer

[KxnGVenom]

Okay so I decided to build a new computer and I have everything setup its running smoothly but I was wondering, if I put in my old hard drive into my new computer would that affect my new computer at all even if there is an OS on both hard drives? Also how would I go about recovering old data from the hard drive to then format it? Any help would be amazing!

[Tommy59375]

As long as your current HDD is selected as the first priority boot device on your new PC (usually the case), you will have no issues what so ever.  Just plug in power to the old drive and connect a SATA cable from it to your new motherboard.  Your new PC will see it with no issues and you will be able to access everything on it, just like when you use your old computer.  Also please follow your own topics.

[Flashie]

Okay so I decided to build a new computer and I have everything setup its running smoothly but I was wondering, if I put in my old hard drive into my new computer would that affect my new computer at all even if there is an OS on both hard drives? Also how would I go about recovering old data from the hard drive to then format it? Any help would be amazing!

I have done this when i changed from my laptop to my desktop PC. I ran everything off of an external before and put the laptops hard drive and the external all into my desktop - which had its OS installed on a completely different drive. Regardless of whether or not the drive has an OS on it, it should be accessible (at least through windows), unless you put your Boot Priority to boot from the old hard drive. From there on, you will be able to transfer the files on the old hard drive - to a hard drive of equal or greater capacity, simply by drag and drop - or hard drive cloning software.

[KxnGVenom]

So there should be no conflict between the drives at all?

[michrech]

No.  If you're using Windows, it will be assigned a drive letter after your primary HDD (usually C:) and any optical drives you have.  You'll be able to navigate it just like it were any other drive connected to your PC.  You just need to make sure your BIOS knows to boot from your new HDD first (if it's connected to SATA 0, and you connect your old HDD to any SATA port higher than that, you should be fine).

 

So there should be no conflict between the drives at all?

[Captain_WD]

Okay so I decided to build a new computer and I have everything setup its running smoothly but I was wondering, if I put in my old hard drive into my new computer would that affect my new computer at all even if there is an OS on both hard drives? Also how would I go about recovering old data from the hard drive to then format it? Any help would be amazing!

 

Hey there KxnGVenom,

 

You won't be able to boot from your old HDD unless you do a complete reinstall of the OS. What you can do is back up everything you need from your current boot partition (your C drive), build your new computer, install the new OS on the new drive without any other drives connected, plug in your old drive, format only your old boot partition and then use both drives as much as you want. You would need to reinstall all the applications and games but this is the safest and most problem-free way do to it.

 

Captain_WD.