swapping hard drives

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gregnic17

My friend gave me his old computer with a 20 gb hard drive. I have an older
computer with a 60 gb master and a 40 gb slave. I was wondering if it was
possible to remove the 20 gb hard drive and replace it with the two from my
computer?
 
On Jan 2, 9:47 pm, gregnic17 <gregni...@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote:
> My friend gave me his old computer with a 20 gb hard drive.  I have an older
> computer with a 60 gb master and a 40 gb slave.  I was wondering if it was
> possible to remove the 20 gb hard drive and replace it with the two from my
> computer?

go for it
 
gregnic17 wrote:
> My friend gave me his old computer with a 20 gb hard drive. I have
> an older computer with a 60 gb master and a 40 gb slave. I was
> wondering if it was possible to remove the 20 gb hard drive and
> replace it with the two from my computer?

Yes, but you will probably have to do a "Repair Install" as the drivers will
not match (unless the newer machine has the same hardware as the older one).
Make sure you have the correct motherboard, sound, graphic drivers etc on
hand.

How to perform an in-place upgrade (reinstallation) of Windows
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341

How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm
 

> My friend gave me his old computer with a 20 gb hard drive. I have an
older
> computer with a 60 gb master and a 40 gb slave. I was wondering if it was
> possible to remove the 20 gb hard drive and replace it with the two from
my
> computer?

Be wary of your power supply if you don't
already have 2 disks installed. It's not likely
to be a problem, but most OEM PCs are built
with cheap, minimal power supplies. Each drive
in the box requires a given wattage. If the
draw from all drives exceeds what the power supply
can handle it could blow. ...Not very common,
but if you smell electrical smoke turn off the PC
very quickly and replace the power supply. :)
Otherwise you're likely to burn out everything in
the box.
 
On Wed, 2 Jan 2008 19:47:05 -0800, gregnic17
<gregnic17@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

> My friend gave me his old computer with a 20 gb hard drive. I have an older
> computer with a 60 gb master and a 40 gb slave. I was wondering if it was
> possible to remove the 20 gb hard drive and replace it with the two from my
> computer?


Yes, almost certainly. You can probably even keep the 20GB drive and
add the other two.

The only constraints are these:

1. You need available drive bays--space to physically mount the extra
drive(s).

2. Motherboards normally have two IDE channels, each supporting two
drives So you can't exceed four drives--including the CD/DVD
drive(s)--unless you also install an add-in IDE card.

3. You need adequate power to run all the installed hardware. If you
add drives, and your power supply is small, you might possibly also
need to replace the power supply with a larger (greater number of
watts) one.

4. You need adequate cooling for all your installed hardware. More
drives create more heat, and you might want to install an additional
case fan if you do this (they are inexpensive).


--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
Please Reply to the Newsgroup
 
"Ken Blake, MVP" wrote:

> On Wed, 2 Jan 2008 19:47:05 -0800, gregnic17
> <gregnic17@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>
> > My friend gave me his old computer with a 20 gb hard drive. I have an older
> > computer with a 60 gb master and a 40 gb slave. I was wondering if it was
> > possible to remove the 20 gb hard drive and replace it with the two from my
> > computer?
>
>
> Yes, almost certainly. You can probably even keep the 20GB drive and
> add the other two.
>
> The only constraints are these:
>
> 1. You need available drive bays--space to physically mount the extra
> drive(s).
>
> 2. Motherboards normally have two IDE channels, each supporting two
> drives So you can't exceed four drives--including the CD/DVD
> drive(s)--unless you also install an add-in IDE card.
>
> 3. You need adequate power to run all the installed hardware. If you
> add drives, and your power supply is small, you might possibly also
> need to replace the power supply with a larger (greater number of
> watts) one.
>
> 4. You need adequate cooling for all your installed hardware. More
> drives create more heat, and you might want to install an additional
> case fan if you do this (they are inexpensive).
>
>
> --
> Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
> Please Reply to the New



Ok, thanks for the info. However, after I installed the hard drives in the
new computer it says its having problems booting. So, I insert the cd with
my windows xp when it tells me to and it reads it for a minute and then the
screen goes black and stays that way. Any ideas? Thanks
 
On Jan 3, 10:39 pm, gregnic17 <gregni...@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote:

> Ok, thanks for the info.  However, after I installed the hard drives in the
> new computer it says its having problems booting.  So, I insert the cd with
> my windows xp when it tells me to and it reads it for a minute and then the
> screen goes black and stays that way.  

Did you set the jumpers on the disks properly?

Do you KNOW that you will have to run a Repair installation of XP to
get the system to load Windows?? (all of the hardware has changed, so
all of the drivers have to be changed too).
 
On Thu, 3 Jan 2008 20:39:03 -0800, gregnic17
<gregnic17@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>
>
> "Ken Blake, MVP" wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 2 Jan 2008 19:47:05 -0800, gregnic17
> > <gregnic17@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> >
> > > My friend gave me his old computer with a 20 gb hard drive. I have an older
> > > computer with a 60 gb master and a 40 gb slave. I was wondering if it was
> > > possible to remove the 20 gb hard drive and replace it with the two from my
> > > computer?
> >
> >
> > Yes, almost certainly. You can probably even keep the 20GB drive and
> > add the other two.
> >
> > The only constraints are these:
> >
> > 1. You need available drive bays--space to physically mount the extra
> > drive(s).
> >
> > 2. Motherboards normally have two IDE channels, each supporting two
> > drives So you can't exceed four drives--including the CD/DVD
> > drive(s)--unless you also install an add-in IDE card.
> >
> > 3. You need adequate power to run all the installed hardware. If you
> > add drives, and your power supply is small, you might possibly also
> > need to replace the power supply with a larger (greater number of
> > watts) one.
> >
> > 4. You need adequate cooling for all your installed hardware. More
> > drives create more heat, and you might want to install an additional
> > case fan if you do this (they are inexpensive).
> >
> >
> > --
> > Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
> > Please Reply to the New
>
>
>
> Ok, thanks for the info. However, after I installed the hard drives in the
> new computer it says its having problems booting.


Have you set the drive jumpers correctly, so that on each IDE cable
with two drives, one of them is Master and the other Slave.



> So, I insert the cd with
> my windows xp when it tells me to and it reads it for a minute and then the
> screen goes black and stays that way. Any ideas? Thanks

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
Please Reply to the Newsgroup
 
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