Switching hard drives

[b1gapl]

OK, I'm taking my 30GB out of my old computer and putting it in my new one. Do I just delete everything in it, when its in the new one. And I bought a smaller HD for the old computer. But what would happen to the programs installed in the old one, would I have to reformat?

 

[Apokalipse]

if your computer has another IDE port (which it should) I would say don't replace the 30GB Hard Drive, just use your new one as extra storage
after you put in a brand new hard drive, you will have to format it before you can use it. restart to DOS and type fdisk
it will tell you what to do from there

 

[Nubius]

If you're putting it into a system that has a completely different motherboard and/or other components then yes you have to format. You can't stick on a HD that was installed on another system and have it work flawlessly by switching em out. Any major hardware change usually requires a format

 

[Amd64Boy]

I just did this a few days ago. You should not have a problem switching the hard drive it should boot right up on the computer unless the drivers from the old computer are still installed on it

 

[ph@ntom]

What you do is you backup all the files on the 30 gig one and restore them on your new drive (previously formatted) that way you'll have the same files on ur old computer and a 30gig drive for ur new one that can be eraced and formatted without loosing any data

 

[jfolkert]

A good utility is Norton Ghost - simply hook up both hard drives, ghost the smaller drive onto the larger drive. Once finished, you can safely remove the smaller drive and still have all of your files accessible from the larger drive.