lazer1978

I have another question for the forum, this time about being a hard drive question.

My question is I've checked with Gateway and my computer will hold two hard drives. My roommate has a computer, which is a little older than mine, but his video graphics card and everything is a lot older than mine is. I wanted to take the hard drive out of his computer and put it into my computer.

Both of the computers run Windows ME. Mine has a newer video graphics card and everything so I want to use mine to play games and such like the Sims 2. Only thing I'm afraid of is his computer is the one that has problems with firefox and such....if I put it into my computer would it have the same problem?

Next question is how do I go about changing the hard drive from his to mine without messing anything up. I would want his as the main hard drive because his has more space than mine does. I think mine only has 9GB of space, and the roommates has 19GB.

johnhook

lazer1978,

This is "do-able" provided both drives are IDE or EIDE and the computer you want to put the drive into has a free IDE connector and drive bay.

If you want to use your friends larger drive as the new primary drive in your pc, you'll need to image or clone the contents of your OLD drive over to your friend's drive. This WILL cause all of the data on your friends drive to be wiped out. That said, you'll want to first make a backup of anything your friend wants to keep on his drive.

What is the make/model of your PC? How many drives (hard drives and CD or DVD drives) are installed in you PC? What is the make/model of your friend's hard drive (the one you want to use)?

Question - does you friend plan on still using HIS computer (the one you're going to take the drive from)? If so, what drive does he plan to use - your old drive?

Sorry for the 20 questions - but it helps to know exactly what you're working with and looking to do before I give you specific advice.

- John

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OverlyDisturbed

would you want it as a master or slave?

johnhook

OverlyDisturbed,

I'm thinking he wants the new drive as a MASTER because he wants to REPLACE his existing smaller drive with his friends larger drive. In this case, I'm thinking he'd need to clone his existing drive over his friends larger drive (resizing the parition while cloning) - then installing his friends drive as the MASTER in his PC.

I'm just not sure if he needs to keep the contents of his friends drive or wants to put another drive in his friend's PC.

Depending on the OP's knowledge of hard drives and PCs - Slave & Master might not mean anything to him - which is why I didn't get into that level of detail.

- John

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OverlyDisturbed

John,

Understandable. But I was just wondering just in case. I see you have it under control.

- Damian

lazer1978

Thanks for the help so far guys....I do understand the slave/master settings and if anything I would want his drive to be the master since it has the most storage, and mine as the slave since it is smaller. But the thing is my drive works really good, and his is the one that has a few errors.

I don't know what all would be on the drive that I would need to keep but I don't think there is anything important. I mean all the files I have saved I can just upload it somewhere on the internet for the time being. My games and such I have disks to install them again so I don't worry bout that to much.

And if I can get the drive to work in my computer I wouldn't worry about a drive in his for the time being because we basically use the same computer.

johnhook

lazer1978,

So it looks like you want to eliminate your friend's PC and install both his hard drive and your hard drives into your PC - making his larger hard drive the primary OS drive on your PC and his drive a seconday data drive - correct?

There are two approaches:

1) Clone and Resize your drive's primary partition to your friend's larger drive. This will create a replica of your hard drives (Windows, data, programs and all) onto his larger drive with a larger partition. You'd then install your drive as a secondary, slave drive - reformat is as Drive D (or E depending on if you have a CD/DVD ROM drive). This solution would be the cleanest in that you won't have to reinstall Windows and all of your programs.

2) Put BOTH drives in your system - making your friend's larger drive as "Primary" and your old drive as "Secondary" or slave. Perform a fresh install of Windows from scratch onto your friend's larger drive - reinstall all programs and data.

In option #1, you'll need a cloning program such as Xxclone:

http://www.xxclone.com/

to Clone your old smaller drive to your friend's larger drive. Both drives must be connected to the same PC (doesn't matter which one).

In this scenario, you'll be wiping out your friends OS, Programs and data - in which case you'll first want to backup any of his data, favorites, documents, music, pictures, videoes, etc. to either removeable media (USB flash drive, external hard drive, CD/DVD recordable discs, the Internet, etc.) BEFORE you clone your drive over his.

In scenario #2, you'll need to backup the data, docs, music, favorites, etc. on your friend's hard drive BEFORE you install a fresh copy of Windows on top of it. If you format YOUR old hard drive as a secondary data drive, you'll also need to backup any data on THAT drive as well.

If you have any specific questions about either method, let me know.

- John

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dkbond07

There isn't a way I can just take the hard drives and swap them and then download all the necessary drivers again is there? I don't feel comfortable with cloning/copying or anything like that. I'm afraid I'll end up messing it up.

johnhook

dkbond07,

Provided you have the original XP install CD for the PC you're transplanting the new hard drive in, you can install that drive in your PC, boot from the XP install CD and run a re-install over the existing copy of XP on that hard drive (pick the SAME folder where Windows is already installed, DO NOT re-partition or reformat the drive in question). This is what's known as an "in-place" install. This will re-install Windows while preserving the filesystem on the hard drive you're installing to. This re-install will force Windows to redetect all of the different hardware on the machine you've transplanted your friend's hard drive into. This should leave all of the files on his drive intact.

The problem with this method is that you'll likely have to re-install programs and may have issues with file permissions and other settings from the old Windows installation.

If you're not comfortable with cloning - I might recommend that you backup and/all data (documents, music, videos, pictures, etc.) from your friend's hard drive FIRST, put his drive as the MASTER in your PC, boot from the Windows XP install CD that came with YOUR PC, and do a FRESH install from scratch (re-partition and reformat your friends larger hard drive).

Using THIS method, you'll still have to reinstall all applications, restore all the data, re-configure your settings, etc - but with a FRESH install on this drive, you'll eliminate the potential problems with an "in-place" upgrade.

I still maintain that cloning is the cleanest solution - but if this is not something you're comfortable with - I would do a fresh install on your friend's drive. Just understand that everthing is going to be wiped out - so you'll need to have backups of your data and copies of any/all programs you need to install.

- John

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