Data Transfer, Help Needed.

philipp3185 · 30 Jun 2011 at 00:58

Hi Guys.

I recently lost my desktop pc due to it just refusing to switch on. I checked all the obvious things and no joy. Anyway to cut a long story short i claimed on my insurance, it was sent away and diagnosed as unrepairable. The only thing saved were my sata harddrives. Now my question is this, how can i transfer the information on them to my new pc?. Is it easy or hard?. Do i need to purchase anything to house the old harddrives in, so as to connect it to my new pc. Is there a freeware tool that does this?. Or a cable of some sort? Do i just drag and drop the files, applications and the like?. My new pc has Windows 7 Premium 64. and my old pc was Windows Vista Premium 32 or X86 is it they call it?. I have lots of applications, files, emails, licenses that kind of stuff, but they are very important to me. Can you help please? Has you can tell i'm a complete noob.

Rroff · 30 Jun 2011 at 01:06

To save yourself a lot of messing about and opening PC up, etc. I strongly reccomend getting one of the SATA caddies from here:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/produ...tid=1660&sortby=priceAsc&subid=1670&mfrid=401 (make sure you get something that fits 3.5" discs tho - some of them are only 2.5" ones).

Slot the HDD(s) in, connect to new PC via USB and you can browse the folders on the HDD and drag files, etc. off.

You can't just copy programs off tho - you'd need to run the install files on the new PC tho you may be able to copy data files, etc. from those programs to the new PC but that takes a bit of knowledge, you might also have some permission issues accessing some files from the old PC - which can be overcome but need a little more work.

philipp3185 · 30 Jun 2011 at 01:51

Rroff said:
To save yourself a lot of messing about and opening PC up, etc. I strongly reccomend getting one of the SATA caddies from here:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/produ...tid=1660&sortby=priceAsc&subid=1670&mfrid=401 (make sure you get something that fits 3.5" discs tho - some of them are only 2.5" ones).

Slot the HDD(s) in, connect to new PC via USB and you can browse the folders on the HDD and drag files, etc. off.

You can't just copy programs off tho - you'd need to run the install files on the new PC tho you may be able to copy data files, etc. from those programs to the new PC but that takes a bit of knowledge, you might also have some permission issues accessing some files from the old PC - which can be overcome but need a little more work.

Hi.
Some of that went straight over my head DOH!!!! The only things i have are the two sata harddrives from my old pc. One of them still has the oem version of the Vista OS that was installed when i bought the old pc. Most of what i want to save is on the harddrive that has'nt got the Vista OS on it. I realize i will have to buy a 3.5inch USB caddie, or would e-sata be better? Just am scared to death of losing all my stuff off the drives, mainly the HDD that was the slave HDD in my old pc. Is there no way i can install the old non OS harddrive as the slave HDD in my new pc. The old HDD's are sata2 3Gbs and the new pc harddrive is sata3 6Gbs. Will that work ok?

Rroff · 30 Jun 2011 at 16:42

You can install the old HDDs in your new PC, does mean opening it up tho and the old vista install might conflict with your new OS.

eSATA would be fine but USB less likely to have any issues and it seemed you wanted the simplest way - so IMO getting a 3.5" USB2 caddie and sticking the drives in that would be the least complex.

Then you can just connect to the new PC via USB, open the drive from My Computer and copy any data files off.

philipp3185 · 30 Jun 2011 at 21:18

That's brilliant, thank you. I'll order a USB2 Caddie and do it the way you say.

philipp3185 · 30 Jun 2011 at 21:31

Sorry. I forgot to ask one final thing. When I have taken off all the stuff I want from the old hard-drives. How do I format them to make sure there is absolutely nothing left on them, just in case I decide to sell them. Although I doubt they will be worth much, new hard-drives are unbelievably cheap now aren't they. Thanks again.

Rroff · 1 Jul 2011 at 00:19

Never used them myself but there is disk wiping software that will overwrite each bit several times to prevent anyone being able to recover the data later (short of high end forsenic examination).