Can I move my old computer's hard drive to my new computer?

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Hello Leo,

I have done copies like these using hard drive extensions. This is a non-obstrusive way to transfer data and eventually can be used for backup. They usually are priced bet $18-$30. Common type of interfacing is by USB.
You put the old hard drive in the extension, use the USB connection to connect to your new pc and let XP search for the drivers. If XP can't find it, use the drivers provided by the extension's manufacturer.

The extension will show up in your Explorer as your D: drive. When you are done with your copy, you can reformat the drive and use it as a backup. It really works well if you have multiple PCs like I do.

I was a little confused by the name "hard drive extensions" in Jica A's response. They're more commonly called "enclosures". If you search Amazon for "External Hard Drive Enclosure" you'll find dozens.

I need to move my old hard drive (windows xp home) to a new PC.

My problem is, I recently had a house fire and my PC (windows xp home edition) was still running when the firemen put the fire out. They cut the power to the house right off. Then the smoke and water was the other problem.

The power supply and the mother board is inop.

The hard drive still runs and has my data.
I have connected the hard drive to a lesser operating system (windows me) pc to read the drive and all the data points to recovery type files. I do not recognize any of the file names that I used.

Do you have any ideas?

Thank you

Warehous

I cannot find the d drive on my pc. I'm trying to install a printer and the pc is definitely detecting it but the pc is asking for the disc that came with the printer. When I insert the disc nothing happens. I have installed other things in my pc so I'm sure the dive is working. Can you help me?

Hi I recently unpluged 1 of the IDE cables that was attached to one of my hard drives as I needed to attach my friend hard drive to translate data from him.
I have to do this as I all ready have 3 hard drives installed on my PC + a dvd writer

Any way I have just re-attached my hard drive and it isnt showing up in "my computer".

i have gone to device manager and the hard drive is showing up under "disk drives".

any ideas on what I need to do >> ??

can I move my old hard drive to a new Dell system

It depends on the old system, but typically the answer is yes.

installing drivers on hard drive bayed in another computer...

ok here goes,
firstly il say where it all went wrong:

My freind was drinkin next to my computer and decided my keyboard was thirsty. Well i have a usb keyboard and mouse because of no psu connections or what ever the standerd mouse an keyboard connections are called. Anyway it seemed to have fried my usbs on my motherboard and they no longer work, so now i dont have a working keyboard and mouse :( its sad but i figued out a solution, one of many firstly i thought "wouldnt the usbs have a fuse of some kind to stop surges", and realized i dont want to get messy with my built in usb's, so i decided on a pci usb card to connect my mouse and keyboard and then realized how am i surposed to install the drivers for this new pci card! So i then decide i will install the drivers on my harddrive main one with root folders.. c:\ on my freinds computer with working mouse and keyboard, now i am having trouble viewing my hard drive i can see it on computer management and am seeking help to install this software on my hard drive using another computer! Or any other sugestions on how to install drivers on to my hard drive...
Thanks, Danny.

What's the name of the cable that you can buy to transfer data from one computer to the other. I think we used to call them "dumb cables". What's the technical name and are they still used?

For serial ports, they were called "null modems". For ethernet they're called reversing cables. Not sure if USB cables have a special name for that or not.

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