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About moving hard drives

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7 replies

by aityrant

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Hi all!

Just a quick question here, ill try to make this brief =)

Basically what Id like to know is if my current hard drive decided to throw a temper tantrum and stop working.. is it possible to plug a hard drive that already has windows on it from another pc into my pc, without any conflicts?

I'm asking because I already tried, and despite setting the Drive to primary.. the bios still considers it a slave and refuses to boot off of it.

Any help? ^^

thanks!

7 replies

by jplconsultant

First, you should make sure that ALL the drivers for the machine are installed on the OS of the 2nd drive. So when the OS loads it will detect the new hardware you won't have any problems there.

As for the BIOS, make sure you've got the drive jumpered correctly and that it's cabled to match.

Finally, depending on how you got the OS on the 2nd machine, you may be breaking the EULA. For example, if that 2nd drive is in a Dell machine (or any other OEM), the EULA states that it must stay in THAT machine and not moved to another.

JPL()

by aityrant

Yeah I think I have the jumpers set correctly and what not, but when you said cabled to match, what did you mean? =p
the HDD thing or.

because yeah the jumper is good and still though the bios reads it as a slave and wont boot, so I think maybe it's compatability maybe (computer illiterate) haha

by jplconsultant

If you jumper an IDE drive as "slave", then you should connect it to the middle connector of the ribbon cable.

If the drive is jumpered "master" then it should be on the end connector of the ribbon cable.

If it's "cable select" then depending on which connector it's on, is how the BIOS will see the drive.

So, make sure you've jumpered it as either "Master" or "master only" if you have that option AND it's on the end connector of the ribbon cable. Be sure to full disconnect the first drive (no power, no cable).

JPL()

by aityrant

Yeah see I figured it didn't even matter which one it plugged in, since they all have power feeding through them.

I'm glad one of us knows what to do. haha

thanks again ^^

by jplconsultant

No Problem. Test it and see how it goes. Reply back here with the results whether pass or fail.

JPL()

by aityrant

Seems it detects it as a master now, but just before it attempts to boot windows up, I get a split second blue screen with some text that seems like it's telling me about an error, but it dissapears as soon as it comes.. so its impossible to read. Then the comp restarts itself.

I won't even begin to guess what happened there =P

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