Old HDD new PC

Vattic · 1 Aug 2010 at 13:51

A long time ago I gave a friend one of my old PC's sans the HDD, this has left me with a HDD which sees no use. I recently got asked for some old files I'd released onto the internet but that are now unavailable, this HDD contain my only copies. The problem is I've not moved HDDs from PC to PC before and need a little help.

The HDD is an old Internal Hitachi Deskstar 80GB (I hope I'm not breaking rules here, this HDD doesn't sell any more and Hitachi doesn't have it on it's site. It has Windows XP Home Edition 32bit installed. My current PC / main SSD has Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit installed.

Do I just connect the standard power and SATA cables, set the drive to boot last from the bios, and then the files will be accessible? Or is there more to it, like I suspect?

Cheers for your time.

edit: Got it installed fine, it's on it's last legs so I want to get the files off. Two new problems now. Firstly I'm having to go through and manually set ownership and permissions for many files, there must be a quicker way to do this, right? Secondly I want to know if it's safe to use robocopy to copy all 73GB of files/folders from the old HDD into a folder on my currently in use 1TB HDD?

vanandjuanunited · 1 Aug 2010 at 13:55

Link refers to an ide drive. either connect to motherboard ide and boot up or get an ide enclosure for it and connect by usb etc

Vattic · 1 Aug 2010 at 14:07

Strange, I've got it here in my hands and it definitely has a SATA connector.

I was looking at possible 3.5 enclosures earlier but was hoping to do it at no cost besides time.

Cheers

.

vanandjuanunited · 1 Aug 2010 at 14:08

if it is sata pop it in and copy data across

Picture relates to IDE. Info indicates sata

Vattic · 1 Aug 2010 at 14:13

Ah yeah I see, misleading product images.

I'll give it a try and report back later.

Thank you for your help.

Vattic · 1 Aug 2010 at 14:45

It seems to be working fine. HDD near death by the sounds of it though. I should be able to get the files I need.

Stupid question time. My PSU came with ready-tied modular cables, it has four SATA connectors and the corresponding cables have duplicate SATA male jacks. Can I connect multiple SATA devices to the PSU using one cable? I don't understand why there are duplicates.

Cheers.

Berserker · 1 Aug 2010 at 14:53

Yes, you can.

But backup that drive first.

Vattic · 1 Aug 2010 at 15:21

Right, thanks for clearing that up.

I keep getting "you do not have permission to access this file" messages while looking through folders and am having to grant myself permission for each folder individually. Is there a way to do this for the whole drive in Windows 7? I tried doing it through properties > security > advanced > owner > edit > then ticking the box "Replace owner of subcontainers and objects". It takes some time seemingly going through all the files and folders but it doesn't seem to have granted me permission to access them.

As for backing up, would it be safe to just copy the whole of the drives contents to a single folder on my 1TB HDD? I can't imagine this would stress it more than a traditional backup and it would provide me with easy access to the files. edit:would robocopy through cmd be a decent method?

Cheers.