Help transferring to new pc

CoolCat

CoolCat

Well-known member
Is it possible to take a old 20gig HD with software, and drivers and my recordng interface drivers and software and move all this to a new HD and then pop in my PCI card?

I got my son a new pc and his old one is alot better than my old old one.:D

software eludes me...so it'll be a Transfer for Dummies.

hardware no prob.

Windows XP on both. or do I just slave in the old HD to the new pc? I've never done this with any luck.

thanks for any help..
 
It should not be a problem.

Pop out the existing HD, put your old one in its place, slot in the PC card, and you should be okay.

but . . .

Your old HD will be configured for all the old hardware (motherboard, monitor etc), and it would be handy if you have the motherboard disk still handy.

but . . .

With a bit of luck, XP will be smart enough to sort this out for you

In anycase . . .

You have nothing to lose. If it doesn't work, you can go back. Then save for a new machine of your own.
 
Thanks...I was hoping to keep the HD in the new one,

and either

1) transfer all my software music stuff over to it, and the pci sound card, to the new pc

2) hook the old music filled HD as a slave

your idea was a thrid option I hadn't thought about... the old HD is 7200 and small but I have a lot of space and save to CD's most the time.

the slave thing seems to be even easier? Do you think there's any software issues if I just move the jumper to slave and plug it in the empty ribbon cable connector on the new pc?
 
MOST Windows software will not 'just transfer' over to a new to a new machine on a drive.

You NEED to reinstall the programs so that they can properly register all their components to the operating system.

Data files are no problem....
 
I think there is a bit of cross-purpose talking happening here, and on rereading the original post, I'm not sure if I'm clear on what's required.

As I understand it, there is a computer in use (which we will call A). It is not as good as another now-available computer (which we call B).

I have experienced this in the past. I dealt with it by taking the hard disk out of A and slotting it into B, to become B's new primary drive. I also shifted my old ISIS PCI sound card out of A and installed it in B. But this step required a re-install of the ISIS card.

With this working ok, I reformatted what was once the primary drive of B, and used it as a slave drive for data.

I too had a small drive (maybe just 16 gig), but this was enough at the time to hold my music software and a few other bits and pieces. All data files were stored on the slave.

As I reread your post, it seems maybe you want to transfer program stuff from the primary drive of A so that it resides on the existing primary drive of B.

I wasn't sure how to effect such a transfer (and nor am I any wiser). I have also done this, but in a less direct way, which is along the lines Tim suggested, i.e. reformatting the hard drive of B, then reinstalling all the software on it.
 
If your talking about transfering Windows from one harddrive to the other and then plugging it into a PC with a different motherboard, graphics, etc then it will not work.

You will find Windows registry will complain about literally everything, and by the time you've solved all the issues its much better to have just reinstalled from the start.

I would - format the new computers harddrive. Plug in the old harddrive making sure to assign it as 'slave'. This means the new harddrive will be booted into. From here, whack your data files onto the new harddrive. Format the old one, and then whack the files back onto the old harddrive.

At least, thats 1 way of doing it.
 
a light bulb is starting to flicker....so if I reformat the "B" hardrive with the old HD "A" as master and "B" as slave....ah! never thought of that.

will the motherboard & hd be cool?
any change required for the BIOS or anntyhing?

this might be easy enough to try. hmmm...yes.

Seems I tried swapping HD's before and it didn't work, and am somewhat skeptical.

yes its a HD from an old old pc, and the new pc is 5yrs newer at least.
thanks...
 
COOLCAT said:
will the motherboard & hd be cool?
any change required for the BIOS or anntyhing?
Click to expand...

If you insert drive A into computer B to become the new primary drive, on boot-up you should get into the bios to get the machine to recognise the new drive.

This is not likely to be a big problem.

However, you could encounter difficulties with the motherboard. It may or may not be a prpoblem. It would be handy if you still had computer B's motherboard disk. You could then reinstall the motherboard components onto your newly relocated drive A. (For example, the old motherboard may not have had USB on it and the new one does. There could be other significant differences).
 
Maybe this is easiest....

I kind of skimmed the thread because I'm at work, so my apologies if I've missed the point or this has been mentioned....

It's much less hassle, provided you have at least a USB 2.0 connection on your computer, to go to any computer store and buy a hard drive enclosure. You can just pop the 20 gig HD into that. You've got hard drives already in both computers, and this can turn into a portable hard drive that you can connect anywhere. I have several external hard drives and couldn't live without them.
 
I think the point was that the second computer was a better machine than the first.

The problem is not reaaly one of a shortage of space.
 
BruceM001 said:
I kind of skimmed the thread because I'm at work, so my apologies if I've missed the point or this has been mentioned....

It's much less hassle, provided you have at least a USB 2.0 connection on your computer, to go to any computer store and buy a hard drive enclosure. You can just pop the 20 gig HD into that. You've got hard drives already in both computers, and this can turn into a portable hard drive that you can connect anywhere. I have several external hard drives and couldn't live without them.
Click to expand...

I have a portable USB HD, bought it for my son who was having blue-screen issues.120GIG or something?
so maybe its even easier to transfer everything to the newer-better computer.

there is something to the Windows crashing the pc...mother board bios stuff. I sold a pc on CL and the guy threw in a HD and it didn't work.
It was probably a mother board bios sort if issue.

this sucks being incompetent...:p

I have a old 700mghz Windows xp with EMU (pci 1820 card) and Kristal-Recording software stuff on it with 256Mram. ...it works fine actually.....

thats all I need to transfer...

I want to transfer it all to a 2ghz, ATI video card, 80gig 1gigram as the son has a new beefed up tower.

I have no issue throwing a jumper in...but I get really stupid quick in the BIOS and Windows registry arena.

transferring to a portable USB HD can be done, but not sure what all to do with the folders (sounds like software work! yikes!:eek:)?
 
switching pc's....

had another outlook on moving from the old pc to the new one.

the emu card and software driver type stuff is off the shelf, or basic generic install so no big deal, no need to transfer form the old HD, I can just load it up new.

the basic recording software is Waves Lite and Kristal Audio Engine which is a free Multitrack software. So I can load it on the new pc fresh too.

so my new thought is I can load everything up on the new pc without transferring it from the old HD....except for the previously recorded tracks and mixes.

so am I correct that the only personal-specific files to transfer would be the tracks and songs? Could I just use a Jump-Drive,Palm memory stick?

Aren't the tracks and songs really the only thing I need to transfer to the new pc for it all to be saved? :confused:
 
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