Hard drive transfer

[jellz77]

I want to move a hard drive from an old computer to a new computer. when installing am i going to have to re-format the drive or will it read it as what it was on the old machine. i have thousands of files i can not lose and was wondering what steps to take when installing this drive.

 

[Trotter]

If you install it as a slave drive, you should be able to access all your data, but your programs will be useless because Windows won't have them in its registry.

As for reformatting, if you want to use it as the main drive, then yes. When you reinstall Windows, it will wipe out everything.

 

[horndude]

depends on the OS on it and whether or not its the only drive

 

[jellz77]

there is no os on this drive; just documents. i'm using this as a backup drive on the new computer as well. there is already an os installed on hard drive (1) on the new computer. should i just set the hard drive to slave and i'll be alright?

 

[horndude]

yep, or put it on the other IDE channel