TRansfer drives from one PC to another

[rslevine]

I am building a new PC. I was wondering if I can transfer my old system simply by taking my existing hard drives and placing them in the new box? The new PC is ready to go with the exception of hard drives. It would sure save a lot of work to be able to do this. Is it a reasonable thing to do? It's sort of like a brain transplant- the hard drives would wake up in a new box.

 

[iss]

I am building a new PC. I was wondering if I can transfer my old system simply by taking my existing hard drives and placing them in the new box?

NO you cant. But if you can do a Repair install. this is not ideal but it works ( Most the time) the best solution is still to do a reformat and clean install of windows.

Is it a reasonable thing to do? It's sort of like a brain transplant- the hard drives would wake up in a new box.

uh huh, next time you talk to a Neursurgeon feel free to ask him how taking a brain from one body and putting it into a completely different body would work out.

 

[rslevine]

More info. Windows 2000 professional SP4 is being used on the old system. There are no drives as yet in the new box.

 

[iss]

the problemw ith taking a drive with an OS installed on it from one machine to another is this, when Windows installs it creates the HAL ( hardware abstraction layer) that is specific to the machine that windows is installed on. taking that drive and putting it into a machine with different hardware, (especially different chipset) usually results in windows not even booting. which why you have to at least do a repair install of windows. and even that does not gurantee no problems which is why a claen install of windows is always the best option.