Old hard drive to new computer: Would this idea work?

[vikenk]

Hello all,

I will be building a new computer in the not-too-distant future. The only holdover from my old computer will be the hard drives and DVDRW drive. The motherboard, vid card, RAM will be all new. I really, REALLY don't want to go through the reformatting and re-installing all software routine, so I have an idea and want to know if this would work.

Before I swap my HDD, I'll clone it (for backup). Then, I want to install all the drivers for all my new parts (mobo, vid, etc) on the hard drive. Then, I'm figuring that when I transfer the old hard drive to the new computer, it will recognize all the new components on boot-up and auto configure them automatically. I'm using Win XP SP3.

Think it'll work?

VikenK

 

[iFargle]

Chances are you'll have to do a complete reformat. If you clone it and load it back on there, it might replace all the drivers for the new computer with the older ones.