Hard drive swap..

savaged wolf

savaged wolf

savaged wolf

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18 Jun 2011
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Hey all,

just ordered a new build and it will be a first full build for me,

now i have ordered an extra 1tb to go with my current 500gb

now my 500gb ( currently residing in my computer ) has everything i need on it, OS, games, music, movies the usual,

im sure this has been asked a fair few times before i have had a quick look but can't seem to find the answer,

is there anything stopping me plonking my old drive in and using that as my primary drive?

thanks , James
 
savaged wolf said:
is there anything stopping me plonking my old drive in and using that as my primary drive?
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Windows will probably boot up but you may well run into problems later on. If I were you I would boot up to put the general media onto the new drive then reinstall the OS onto the old drive (assuming you want the smaller as your OS disk).
 
You have two options:

- Install windows onto your new disk
- Install windows onto your old disk

It doesn't really matter which option you choose as they don't really offer any advantages/disadvantages. I personally prefer having the operating system installed on the bigger disk so I'll explain how you'll go about that.

When the new hard drive arrives you will put it in your PC. Make sure you have a spare SATA port on your motherboard and a spare SATA cable. When you turn on the PC you'll need to go into BIOS (how you do this depends on your motherboard, google it if you're unsure) and change the hard drive boot priority (think it's called that?) so that your new hard disk is the master and your old disk is the slave. You'll also need to change the boot sequence so that your PC tries to boot from your DVD drive first. Whack in your windows disk and install windows onto the new drive. When everything is done you can go to my computer and your old disk will be there. What you do here is preference but I would personally copy all my media into a new folder on the old disk and just delete everything else.

Please let me know if any of that isn't clear :)

Edit

When you say "is there anything stopping me plonking my old drive in and using that as my primary drive?" I assume you mean will there be any problems. Nothing is stopping you as such, like I said you probably will be able to get onto windows if you just put your current hard drive into your new build but you may well run into conflicting drivers issues and other stuff down the line.
 
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You can keep your old stuff if you do what I said. No need to start again :) You would be able to browse your old drive like you can now, it will just appear next to your C drive. The only thing that will change is that the operating system isn't being run from it. You would need to reinstall games but the data will remain so videos and other normal files will work just fine.

You can download the installation as an ISO and burn it onto a DVD. You can even install from the USB stick. You just need to find out how to get your CD key.

This might be useful: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18287016
 
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ahh excellent, that said i think i may have a cd at some point i created as back up,

thank you very much i think i know what i need to do.

so i put hard drive in, change the bios to make it primary and it sounds like after that its all fine , whack the disc i think i have in and install,

and run as normal - so what happens in the older drive?

purely for arguments sake and to make it easier as im really new with this - if i already have the OS on the old HDD and want to make it my primary and my other drive to run as secondary. wouldn't it run as normal if i create it the priority

basically as a background story , im building a whole new computer and have bought a 2nd hard drive admittedly bigger than the first. so my original plan would have been to put the older hard drive straight into the new computer without any issues ?
 
this makes a little more sense to me,

the 500gb i have has all the old stuff on it INC OS

the new 1tb will be either the primary or secondary ( ideally primary )

so if its not too much trouble could you explain .. where im putting the disc - is that a normal CD data disc Or the new drive or what?
i am really sorry
 
I suppose I may as well point out before someone else does that you *will* need to buy a new copy of Windows anyway if your existing copy is an OEM version which was preinstalled on your current PC, at least if you want to stay licence-legal.

I think if I were you I'd first of all install the new 1TB drive in the old PC, copy across any data you want to save from the 500GB drive, then pull them both out and install the 500GB drive *on its own* in the new build - then you can format it and install Windows knowing that your data is safe on the new drive and won't fall victim to any little mishaps during the setup process. Once your installation is up and running to your satisfaction, then and only then install the 1TB drive as a secondary drive in the new build.

Ideally it might be preferable to install Windows on the newer drive (suitably partitioned to keep OS and user data separate), as it's likely to be faster, but I'm guessing you'd rather keep things simple, and it probably wouldn't make a huge difference to your user experience unless the old drive is defective in some way. :)
 
right what ive done is buy a new OS need to keep things simple for my mind,

so at this stage then how would i go about getting rid of the OLD OS, ideall i dont want to re format everything on the old drive.. but i reckon i may have too,

id want to keep, games, movies, photos, programs ( to an extent )
 
You could re-install Windows on the old drive without formatting it first (the previous installation would be moved to a folder called "windows.old" which you could delete at a later date), but it would be better to blow everything away with a format so that you're starting with a clean slate and not carrying over any crud from the previous setup.

Your programs will need reinstalling anyway, and you could save your user data by doing what I suggested above.
 
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matthab said:
If I were you id go and read the Mircrosoft licensing terms again. What you wrote there is so poor and misinformed. It is technically wrong to have 2 OS's on the same key but you wont be booting from the 500gb anymore.
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lol... go ahead and read them yourself, I'm not the one who's misinformed: http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/licensing/sblicensing/pages/licensing_faq.aspx#faq2

Q. My customer bought a new PC and wants to move the OEM software from the old PC to the new one. Can't users do whatever they want with their software?

A. The OEM software is licensed with the computer system on which it was originally installed and is tied to that original machine. OEM licenses are single-use licenses that cannot be installed on more than one computer system, even if the original machine is no longer in use. The End User Software License Terms, which the end user must accept before using the software, states that the license may not be shared, transferred to, or used concurrently on different computers. System builders must provide end-user support for the Windows license on computers they build, but cannot support licenses on computers they didn’t build. This is a fundamental reason why OEM System Builder licenses can't be transferred.
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savaged wolf said:
ahh i act way to quickly, ordered an OS and went out before i read that comment
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Ignore him, he has no idea what he's talking about.
 
ahh fair enough ,

so how can i "make" if thats the correct word to use, my HDD (500gb) into just a data store, im tempted to just wipe it and start again ( how can i just wipe it all ) ?

Thanks all for your patience and im sure there will be a fair few threads made tomorrow when im building it ! haha
 
Once your up and running just format the disc assuming the new installation is on your new hard disc.

I think you bought the new operating system.
 
If you've decided to install the OS on the new drive and use the old drive just for data, you can format it from within Windows when you're done.

I'd still just have the one drive attached when you actually install Windows though (plug the 500GB drive in afterwards), as otherwise you might end up in a muddle with drive letter assignments. Having said that, Windows 7 setup seems a bit more intelligent in this respect than previous versions, but no harm in playing it safe.
 
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