Build question

[gospel]

I've got a Compaq that I am sick of, but it has a soundcard, videocard, etc. etc. that I upgraded myself. It also has a 120gb HD that has all my stuff on it. I bought a motherboard, case, and power supply combo and was planning on starting to build my own. Then I started wondering. Why not use the upgraded parts that I put in the Compaq instead of buying new stuff for the one I'm building. This led me to the question that I would like to ask here.
Can I put the HD in the new pc and get it to work? This would keep me from having to get another OS and moving all my stuff to a new HD?

 

[Jorsoft]

It might work, then again, maybe not. It all depends on how Windows reacts to the change; a complete hardware change can really mess it up. What you can do is back up everything that you can onto removable media (either by yourself or with a program, like PC Relocater) and then stick the new HD in. If you're having problems, try reinstalling Windows over itself first. If that doesn't work, you will have to go ahead with a reformat and install Windows fresh.

 

[Nubius]

Ehh...just stick the HD in the new machine..chances are it will boot up but I'd suggest backing up whatever files you want then formatting it. I put my grandmothers 10gb hardrive that was in a 4 year old peoplepc built machine with intel motherboard and junk like that and threw it into my amd machine with msi motherboard and it booted right up...not to mention she had win98 on it....but yeah there should be a good chance that'll still boot up. But the chances for receiving errors will be greater. So stick it in...see if it'll boot up...and start backing stuff up and then just do a format. Safest and best way

 

[gospel]

thanks for the replies. When my stuff comes in I'll see what happens.

 

[U-Toast]

yeait should boot up in new pc, but once it does, uninstall all your drivers from ur old components, and install the new ones.

 

[derfist]

just backup all ur files (not programs) 2 a cd. backup the files to install the programs 2. then, format ur hdd n reinstall windows.

 

[gospel]

Guess what. I asked one of the IT guys where I work about this today. He said he didn't think it would work. He said he thought I would get a blue screen because of all the conflicts. He said that it might work with some other OS besides Win XP? I don't know? I guess as long as I have everything backed up it won't hurt to try.

In my slightly computer literate but logical mind I would think that the best way to go about this is to just try to boot the machine then add the CD drives, video card, soundcard, etc (the mobo has built-in sound and video).