Data-swapping question...

[acrebo]

Apologies if this has an obvious answer, it's new to me!

I'm in the process of putting together a new build to replace my old cheap, broken PC. Now, on my old, cheap broken PC's hard drive is all the stuff that I want to rescue, on an old version of XP.

I will be buying a new 500GB hard drive in this build, so am planning on moving everything I want to keep onto this drive and then format the old drive and use it as the drive to install Windows onto.

Question: Is it as easy as putting both hard drives into the build to start with, boot from the old drive so that it goes onto my old copy of XP, drag and drop everything into a set folder on the new hard drive, and then format and intall Windows on the old drive?

Is there anything I will need to do to my new hard drive beforehand? Create folders, etc?

Many Thanks

 

[ChrisLX200]

There are a couple of difficulties with what you propose...

You cannot easily transfer a Windows installation from your old computer to the new one. Before anyone says - yes, it IS possible by stripping out the drivers and performing a 'Repair Install' from the XP disk. However you really don't want to go there - you should do a fresh install.

After installing XP on the new drive you can connect up your old drive again (as a secondary drive) and retrieve your documents, emails and so on. I know this means you end up with the OS on your new drive rather than your old one, but that's a better idea - the new drive will likely be quicker and less prone to failure.

You need do nothing with a new drive, the XP disk will create a new partition and format it during the install. Note that it's better NOT to have your old drive attached whilst installing XP, the existance of a previous install will just complicate matters.

 

[acrebo]

Thanks mate, I think that makes sense.

So, once I've installed a fresh copy of Windows on the new drive and then added the second drive (ensuring that the new HD is used to boot up), I can then just drag and drop files across onto the new drive? Or will the old copy of Windows be fine just sat on the old drive, with me still able to access all my files on that drive without difficulty?

 

[ChrisLX200]

Data files like Word documents, images, s'heets and so on you can just drag across, the programs installed on the old drive will need to be re-installed onto the new drive. Email and contacts can be imported into a fresh install of Outlook. Using a fresh install will get rid of the dross files, old drivers and registry errors which inevitably accumulate over time slowing the computer down and making it unstable.

 

[acrebo]

That all sounds fine, cheers. I'd expect to have install all programs again - a good to streamline what I actually use!

Thanks for the help