installing old hard drive

[ginman522]

I have a newbish question.....

Is it possible to just plug in my old primary hard drive, running vista, into a sata 2 port in my new windows 7 build? Would it be just like installing a brand new secondary drive?

My main concerns are (1) even though my old drive would not be a boot drive on this PC, it does have lots of programs installed (including Vista), so it may somehow confuse my windows7 install? (2) possibly introducing a virus, worm, trojan etc or it would hurt the performance of my PC somehow?

Would I just be able to delete all the vista files once installed? Does anyone know of a guide if its complicated?

It would be very hard for me to find all my needed files and transfer all of them. Like old resumes, movies, etc. Somehow I get the feeling it would be easier to search for my important files and put them on a USB drive to transfer.


Thanks for the help

[frontier204]

I've done this in the past except with another "primary" drive in a USB enclosure and a laptop, and it was two Vistas. One issue I found is that there are a lot of folders that are inaccessible (at least without some "persuasion" by answering a LOT of UAC prompts) to the host OS. If you set your documents folders in Vista to be "private", then you won't be able to access them through Windows 7.

[1] You should be OK as long as your BIOS does not try to boot from it.
[2] If there's a virus on the old drive of course it can get over to your new system. Copying the infected files over and booting from it accidentally are two ways that can happen. There should be no change in performance.

Originally Posted by ginman522

Would I just be able to delete all the vista files once installed? Does anyone know of a guide if its complicated?

Actually the first issue you may have is that your Windows 7 will lock you out of trying to access, not to mention delete important Vista files. You'll need to use either a Linux Live CD or other tool that doesn't care about permissions to delete any of the OS files (C:\Windows, pagefile.sys, etc.), then you'll need to delete the bootloader. If you want to use the hard drive again, it will be a LOT easier to just image the drive (to save all the stuff) and then wipe the master boot record (MBR) of the drive. We can suggest tools if you want to do that.

Alternative:

It sounds like you still have both PCs functional? If they're on a network, just put a network share on your Windows 7 PC and transfer all the files you want over the network from the Vista PC to the Windows 7 PC. I like this option better as you don't run into the file permission issues and since you are working on your old PC's interface, it will be more intuitive to find your old files.

Assuming you didn't do software development or run old programs that store their data in their install directories, copying over the contents C:\Users should get everything from the old computer.

[ginman522]

yes my old PC is still fully functional, but not on a network...but thats a great idea. I did't use any old part for new build, not even my monitor. I will network them together for a week or so, and that will give me time to find all the files I need.

Thank for the help, I didnt even think of a network. MYy old PC, I had it so long that All my files are spread out everywhere and my hard drive is totally full. So networking and doing it slowly, remembering as I go seems like the best solution. I can even do it wireless.

[Painbringer71]

You will be able to grab save files music pictures etc… The system files are still partitioned an not accessible. What I did when I got a ssd boot drive was set windows like new on the ssd. Then I added the old drive as a secondary drive. Then I grabbed my needed files from the old drive transfer them to an external hard drive. Then I formatted the old drive like new and started over. My boot ssd did not have the room to do it. If your new drive has room then you do not need a external hard drive.