Copying Old Hard Drive to New PC - Comments Page 1

I really like Acronis. I routinely backup my HDD to another (removable) HDD and have had NO problems. I can boot from either drive and have the same information.

I'll put in another plug for Acronis...I had an intermittent HDD failure, but was able to install and do a full disk image onto an external drive and then transfer it to a new internal drive. I thought I was going to have to rebuild the system (data and applications) but was up and running as if nothing had happened...really impressive!

I have System Commander 8.0 Installed on a 20GB drive.....not sure if this would be a problem when copying drives as follows..... Using Norton Ghost to copy the 20GB drive to a new 80GB drive was unsuccessfull. "Missing NTLDR" was the reported error on boot. Nobody seems to be able to rectify this problem because googling for a solution to this apparently common problem using Nortons program. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Question: I have a 2k OS the drive will not boot long story I will leave it at that. I want to put it in an external USB case and get the files I need then reformat and use. The problem will be that there will for a while be two C drives! How do I over come this, so I can get the information off the old C:\ HDD. Also, what would the initial jumper settings be?

EDITOR'S NOTE: You won't have two C: drives. Windows will assign the second drive it's own drive letter, probably D. Make sure the jumper settings on the secondary drive are Slave or Cable Select.

Is there some way to install an IDE hard drive from my old (dead) computer into my new computer (which has a SATA hard drive)? I'm trying to avoid fixing the old computer just to retrieve the files I need.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Yes, the two drives can co-exist, as long as your motherboard has the IDE drive connectors. Failing that, you can buy an adapter card to plug your drive into.

I think this might be a tricky one. My laptop has a short and cannot be charged. And yes battery is dead. Rather than pay for a new mother board to be installed I opted to buy a new computer. Question; is there anyway for me to retrieve my documents/ pictures from my hard drive without taking it to a professional. Is there a device I can hook my hard drive up to and transfer to my new computer?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Yes, you can get an external enclosure for the laptop hard drive and turn it into portable storage that can be connected to another computer via USB cable.

My computer completely crashed and will not load. It keeps looping around to the start up. My question is I have an extra hard drive that I stored all my graphic files on and I want to transfer these files to my new computer. Can I do this in dos? If so , how.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sure, you'll need to install the drive as a secondary drive in the new computer, then copy them just like any other files. See http://askbobrankin.com/add_a_second_hard_drive.html

My old Profile 2 desktop is unable to power on and it's not worth fixing a faulty internal power supply or connector, but I'd like to retrieve personal files from its hard drive and transfer them to my new laptop. I assume I have to remove the old hard drive, but then what? How do I access it? And whats the best way to transfer photos? tx

Can I copy the partition from my laptop hard drive and use it and the os and all with the new computer that I am putting a new drive into, Or do i have to reinstall each and every program and re-do all the settings?

EDITOR'S NOTE: It's possible. Try a disk imager like Acronis, then restore the image to the new drive.

My old PC died recently, it still gets power but gets as far as the windows start up and powers out so I bought a new laptop and was wondering how I would go about transfering files(music, photos etc) from the old desktop to the new laptop.

EDITOR'S NOTE: You can buy a kit to convert an internal hard drive to an external hard drive, and plug it into your laptop's USB port. One company that makes these kits is Addonics.