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Making two towers work together

7K views 14 replies 6 participants last post by  smz 
#1 ·
:4-dontkno:4-dontknoI have had a Dell Dimension XPS R400 computer tower with added memory card and I just bought a Dell Inspiron 530 tower. I want to integrate them in the easiest way possible so I can retain the memory space and use them together at the new towers increased speed. Jeff Dye
 
#2 ·
A little more detail please? Merge the hard drives into one? Network them so they can both see each other? Explain.

Thanks.
SMZ
 
#6 ·
I want to combine my Dimension xps R400 with my new Inspiron 530 in order to take advantage of the stored information, DVD drive, and floppy disc drive and hard drive while operating it through my new faster machine. Is there an easy way to connect to two together so that the new machine is aware of a makes use of all that is stored in the old machine. I am looking for the easiest way to do this. Or do I need to transfer all those pieces, hard drive and memory to the new machine. Please ask me more questions as I do not know enough to tell you things you may need to know. Jeff Dye
 
#8 ·
I would transfer the old hard drive to the new computer and run it as a slave so you can use all of your old information. I my experience you can actually put your old hard drive as the primary fairly easy as long as the old and new computer are the same make (Dell). The only benefit to this would be if there are programs you have on the old hard disk you need to run if you don't still have the install disks for them to install onto the new hard drive. If you put the old hard drive as a slave you can access files not programs. I hope this helps
 
#9 ·
It sounds like all he wants to do is control/use his old computer via his new computer. Which makes no sense, it's like sitting in the driver's seat of a corvette and driving a remote control cavalier. Get a KVM switch, run both machines, switching back and fourth as needed.
 
#11 ·
I partially am taking his reply as if he thinks because he has a new computer, he cannot use the operating system and or programs in the new machine or something.

Jeff, if I am interpreting this right, have a look at this program,
look at what it is capable of doing and let us know if this is what you are trying to do? Sounds like you want the old computer configuration but with the newer, faster, computer but not have to take the hard drive from the old and replace the new one. There is a sys prep tool involved if in fact you want to run the same operating system and config as you did in the old machine but will not get into that now until we get confirmation of exactly it is you are trying to do.

Since they are both Dells, I don't think the Windows Activation wizard will popup as it's bios is built into the oem copies of XP and Vista.

SMZ
 
#12 ·
Dear SMZ, Really this is about not having more trashed things to have to throw away and my limited knowledge of computers. I am willing to do either of two things. 1) take the hard drive, floppy disc, expanded memory out of my old tower 1999 Dell Dimension XPS R400 and install them in my new dell 530 Inspiron so I can use them and not trash them and hopefully keep all of the stored information. or 2) connect the two towers so that they work together, expanding the abilities of both and combining the knowledge of the old one with the power and speed of the new one. Ideally I could make a cable to connect the two and that would be that, that is the extent of my knowledge. Hope this information is helpful. Jeff Dye
 
#13 ·
Jeff here, Really this is about not having more trashed things to have to throw away and my limited knowledge of computers. I am willing to do either of two things. 1) take the hard drive, floppy disc, expanded memory out of my old tower 1999 Dell Dimension XPS R400 and install them in my new dell 530 Inspiron so I can use them and not trash them and hopefully keep all of the stored information. or 2) connect the two towers so that they work together, expanding the abilities of both and combining the knowledge of the old one with the power and speed of the new one. Ideally I could make a cable to connect the two and that would be that, that is the extent of my knowledge. Hope this information is helpful to all of you who are trying to help me.. Jeff Dye
 
#14 ·
Well Jeff, I think your only solution here is to remove the hard drive from your old PC and install it into your new. I would make the hard drive from your new PC master and the hard drive from your old PC slave. That way you can utilize the new OS and still access any files that you have on your old hard drive. Unfortunately the RAM from your old PC may not be compatible with the new PC, besides if it is a 1999 PC - at best it probably only has 256MB so you really aren't gaining much by adding it to the new PC. There is no such cable that would allow you to connect the 2 PC's together so that one PC can use the resources from the other to gain performance enhancements. A KVM switch (as magistr suggested) would allow you to connect the 2 together and use the same monitor, mouse, and keyboard to operate both PC's but you would not be able to transfer files nor would you be able to gain performance by "merging" the resources together.

If I were you I would just let the old PC as is and just set up a small workgroup network. That way you could still share files between your PC's, access your old files and programs, and share printers. Also if you have kids this is a good way to keep them off your computer
 
#15 ·
Jeff,

After careful thought. I am going to side with the person who posted this (see the quote below)

With limited computer knowledge, it's unfeasible to do a restore of your entire OS as if it was on the old machine in the new tower. The problem lies with Windows NT & higher where swapping drives usually does not allow a user to just boot back up where you left off. The most important component to start with is your hard drive controller. So in theory let's say Old Computer has a Via IDE hard drive controller and is using the Hyperion driver package. The new PC sports an Intel 9xx chipset but the old computer has never seen any of the hardware of the Intel 9xx. Simply put this means it will have no clue how to boot. You will get a boot device not found or some other message indicating the above. For advanced techies, there is an admin tool called Sysprep to assist in making the transition from one machine to another very simple and literally restore your old computer configuration (outside of hardware) to exactly the way you left it on the older machine. It can do this as sys prep will tell Windows to boot up as if it's never seen the new hardware before so it goes into autodetect/new setup mode though all your software is in tact.

In summary if sysprep was ran correctly on the old drive and then inserted in the new machine, you could even use it as a master. But like the this poster suggested, you need to put your old drive in as a slave or primary master and make sure that the bios is configured to boot from the new drive and you will access all your old data from the standpoint of a slave drive, generally drive D or E.

On a side note regarding using your old drive in a new machine. I don't recommend ever doing this unless the old computer is not far off in age from the new one. Reason being that each year, the speeds of hard drives increase and sometimes at a larger percentage than other years. So a 5 year old drive could perhaps yield a 40mb/sec sustained transfer raid at UDMA/100 and for fair comparison, had a brand new generation UDMA/100 drive, it's likely to boast 70+mb/sec now. Even worse is if the older drive was 5400 RPM or less and had a considerable less amount of hardware cache. Now if your old drive is IDE and the new drive is SATA, you would be a FOOL to not use the new drive as your primary boot drive. CPU efficientcy is greatly improved and as of my experience with SATA 1 and SATA 2 drives, I have not found one slower then any IDE drive in any of my older generation machines.

So remember this and use the same principle with other components whether it's the video card, dvd drive, etc. Everything improves in either performance or efficiency over time. Compatibility is also another thing to consider.

I know this was long but I wanted to cover as much ground as I could so perhaps you could read this more as an individual then someone expected to have a basic Computer Science 101 type expertise level. I hope my explanation was easy to understand. In short, you will be doing yourself an injustice to take any major component from an outdated machine and use it in a new machine if the age difference between the two is more than a couple years old. Also in most cases the old machine will have AGP based video and the new one is PCI-E. Onboard will cancel out the need to worry about that.

Feel free to respond back to us if you have a better understanding what's at stake here and you still have questions. Always happy to help here.

Take it easy Jeff,
Scott
aka SMZ
 
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