Hard drive to new PC

[IainG]

I have bought a new Dell 'Studio' PC with Windows Vista Home Premium already installed. My old PC died (see my posts under "Is it dead - Windows XP") and I have extracted the old hard drive - Western Digital WD800 "serial ATA". I would like to recover some of the files from this old drive (e.g Outlook addresses etc) and I have discovered that I can buy an 'enclosure' for this that will allow me to plug it into my new PC via a USB2 port.

As the old hard drive has all the Windows XP stuff on it and is the main drive from another PC with all the 'start up' commands and procedures will it conflict with my new PC if I simply plug it in?

[Dalo Harkin]

You can slave the drive and get the info off - whip the side panel off your case - add the drive to a spare power molex (some require the specific SATA cable)

and a SATA data cable.

when you hook it up you then just go to Admin tools in control panel and then disk management and activate the disk and drag and drop what you need.

Then format the disk and keep it in your new one as a backup or storage :)

[Tootech]

Please be aware of any implications to your new PC warranty when removing panels and connecting old drives :)

 

Is it Outlook or Outlook Express that you used to use on XP?

 

They are very different in the way they store data.

 

Outlook Express uses dbx files for each message folder, Oulook uses a .pst file to store everything.

 

Contacts and email addresses can be difficult to recover, as they are not directly available from an Outlook Express folder.

 

An external adapter such as this may help

 

Plexus USB to IDE & SATA Adapter With Power Adapter (Supports 2.5" / 3.5" IDE & Serial ATA Hard Disk) - Ebuyer

[IainG]

Thanks for the advice. I am trying to avoid opening my new PC, as you point out, so that I don't undermine any warranties. I have located various devices that I can use to 'enclose' the old dive and that (they say) can then be plugged into my PC via a USB2 port. These seem to provide what I need without opening the new PC, but my greatest concern is the possible conflict if the old drive contains Windows XP start up commands and procedures. Will Vista ignore these if I plug in the drive?

Thanks also for the comment on the Outlook files. It is 'Outlook' (not O/Express) so hopefully the .pst files will be recoverable.

Iain

[Tootech]

Will Vista ignore these if I plug in the drive?

 

Yes!

 

Fire up your new PC.

 

Power up your old drive, which will have it's newly aquired USB adapter or caddy set up and plug it in to a USB port.

 

Your old drive will be assigned a drive letter and you will be able to sift through the file system.

 

The only possibilty I can think of where there may be a conflict is if you boot with the old drive still connected to your USB and powered up. Some systems check for a bootable USB drive.

 

Other than that you'll be ok.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

If the latter aspect does happen then go into the bios and disable Boot from USB temporarily.

 

Extract all relevant data that you want from the old drive then format it.

 

Once done go back into the bios and re-enable boot from USB.

[IainG]

Thanks all. I'll let you know how I get on.

[Dalo Harkin]

DELL warranty - have a read of this

Forums - Dell Warranty opening case - PC Advisor

 

It wont invalidate your warranty

Edited March 26, 2009 by Dalo Harkin

[IainG]

It worked. The hard drive 'enclosure' from ebuyer.co.uk was easy to assemble and worked first time. I've now recovered all my old files. Thank you all for your help. Not only was the information useful you also gave me the confidence to do it. (All at no risk to the warranty - thanks for that advice anyway.)

The only thing I haven't been able to sort out has been the 'outlook' addresses. I can't find them on the old drive.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Have a read of this Ian, it may be of some use.

 

Outlook repair, pst repair, repair pst, pst recovery, repair Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook repair software, pst repair tool