Copy Files from old HDD to a new one

[Danny Proud]

Guys so i bought a new computer with a new hdd on it. how can I copy my old files on my old hdd to my new one? and both has Windows on it installed.

[Kdog]

You could plug in your old drive into a SATA port in the computer and just drag and drop files from one place to another. 

[Psittac]

are you trying to copy files, OS or programs?

[MarkoInBC]

The easiest way is to remove the HDD from your old computer and connect it into your new one, that is assuming you have all the right connections.  Is your old drive at least SATA?

[Danny Proud]

Just now, Psittac said:

are you trying to copy files, OS or programs?

Games,picture, etc 

[MarkoInBC]

1 minute ago, Danny Proud said:

Games,picture, etc 

If you can connect the old drive to your computer, it will be as simple as drag and drop from one drive to the other for the pictures.  Games, you will almost certainly have to reinstall to work correctly.

[Danny Proud]

Just now, MarkoInBC said:

If you can connect the old drive to your computer, it will be as simple as drag and drop from one drive to the other

So ill jsut connect the old hdd to my new pc and boot it?

[Kdog]

1 minute ago, Danny Proud said:

So ill jsut connect the old hdd to my new pc and boot it?

Don't boot from it, boot from your new drive. Just drag files from one drive to the other.

[Danny Proud]

1 minute ago, Kdog said:

Don't boot from it, boot from your new drive. Just drag files from one drive to the other.

oh ok lol thanks  imma test it now 

[MarkoInBC]

I'm going to assume it's a SATA drive, and you should be able to connect it.  You should be able to remove it from your old system, take the SATA cable along with it.  Find a free SATA port on your NEW computer motherboard, and then connect the power to the drive.  When booting, you should make sure to boot from the new drive, not the old one you just connected.  If all goes well, you will boot into windows and you should see your old drive showing up as newly detected hardware.  Soon after, you'll be able to access it just like any other drive in your system.

[Psittac]

Jayz two cents and others have mentioned something about an OS working from one machine to another but I'm not certain how this works.  Given this info I would know of a way to move everything to the new computer but it would be complicated and cost more money for the software to do it.

 

The easiest thing to do would be what everyone has mentioned, remove the old hdd and plug it in to the new computer then select the new hdd as the boot drive in the uefi and drag and drop.  Programs can't be copied from one machine to another and need fresh installs, however this isn't a huge concern these days with everything being online.  Remember that some internet providers have data caps, mine is 1tb a month so keep that in mind, this is enough data for most use cases.