Using old hard drive in new computer

[m33rak]

I recently built a new computer without a hard drive since I want to use my old hard drive in the new one. I basically want to take the old hard drive without deleting anything off of it (maybe only the drivers from the old computer) and put it into the new computer. Any suggestions?
I have tried putting the old hard drive into the new computer, but it couldn't get past the bios screen.
A resolution that I've been thinking about is to purchase a solid-state drive just for the operating system and essential software that I will use most often (speech recognition software Dragon NaturallySpeaking) among other things and to use my current hard drive as storage, would this work?

[swordsman247]

Yeah that would work I just do that a lot for people when they get and upgrade.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Yep you can use the drive and its data, but you will probably have to reinstall the os. SSD would work fine

.

[manikyath]

if the OS and data is on the same partition, you'll need to either take the data off before reinstalling, or get different boot media (perfect time to get an SSD) and clean up the hard drive afterwards.

[imreloadin]

9 minutes ago, m33rak said:

I recently built a new computer without a hard drive since I want to use my old hard drive in the new one. I basically want to take the old hard drive without deleting anything off of it (maybe only the drivers from the old computer) and put it into the new computer. Any suggestions?
I have tried putting the old hard drive into the new computer, but it couldn't get past the bios screen.
A resolution that I've been thinking about is to purchase a solid-state drive just for the operating system and essential software that I will use most often (speech recognition software Dragon NaturallySpeaking) among other things and to use my current hard drive as storage, would this work?

Be sure to get any software license keys from your programs you use if they have them before deleting anything just to be on the safe side.

[m33rak]

If I use the SSD for the OS, how do I remove the OS from my current hard drive?

[Mighty_Miro_WD]

10 hours ago, m33rak said:

If I use the SSD for the OS, how do I remove the OS from my current hard drive?

 

Hi mate!

 

As the others said you can access and use the mass data stored on the HDD but you won't be able to run most of the software installed on it. 

In short, some programs (like notepad++ for instance) are made to be self-contained and don't rely on much if anything outside of their directory, they can still run after the OS is installed on the other drive, while others make registry changes and links itself to DLL's and they should be reinstalled.

As for removing the OS from the HDD, as long as the boot order in BIOS is correct the system will boot from the SSD.

 

Hope this helps and feel free to ask any questions you may have.