How can I transfer data from old hard drive to new computer?

[kat3teresi]

My computer decided to die on me, so now I want to transfer my data from the hard drive in the dead computer to my new one. I am not sure how to do this. I have heard of using an external hard drive or some way where you make it the slave I'm not really sure.
I have an IDE, 80gb, 5400 rpm, 3.5 in hard drive.
All help will be appreciated!

 

[raybay]

Put the drive in the second bay jumpered as a slave or on the second SATA cable.

Then drag and drop or use recovery software.

Or buy a good Powered (Addonics, for example) USB external drive Enclosure. Put the old drive in there, and plug it into a USB port where you can see everything... then drag and drop all the data... etc.

You can take as long as you need to get it right.

You might want to read up on where Outlook Express, Outlook, Firefox and so on keep their files... Quicken, Quickbooks, etc. But it is relatively trouble free.

You want the enclosure that has its own power adapter that plugs into the wall, as it really taxes your system to run this external drive off the USB power.

Be sure to shop for the correct enclosure. They have them for both SATA and EIDE and are not usually interchangeable.