I want to take my old computers Hard Drive and attach it to my new computer. Im curious as to how i should go about doing that. ive already gotten it off of my old computer. and im pretty sure i can figure out how to get it attached to my new computer. but im not sure how to set up the BIOS, slave/master thingy, and what im supposed to do with the jumper settings. any help will be greatly appreciated. o and my Hard Drive is an Enhanced IDE (called an EIDE right?)

No need to mess with the BIOS, just the jumper.
Tell us more about the hardware (SATA, PATA).

There is usually 3 jumper settings;

1. Master (primary hard disk)
2. Slave (secondary hard disk)
3. Cable select (1 or 2 is determined by the connector used automatically.

Your original hard drive is going to be a primary hard drive. You want to fit your new hard drive into the case, and then change the jumper setting on the new hard drive to slave, or cable select.

You then want to boot into BIOS, and confirm that the first hard drive to boot is still the original hard drive. If your only using IDE drives it will boot from the Master drive.

Really it is best to take out the old drive to look at it if possible. By doing this you can confirm whether the existing drive is set to Master or Cable Select (it will be one of these 2 in 99% of the cases). You'll want to ensure it is Master. There will most likely be a diagram on the drive label showing you where the jumper should be for Master.

Then on the new drive, again look for that label and set the jumpers on the drive to Slave. Now connect them on the same ribbon (order on the ribbon doesn't matter) and you are set. Well its probably good to check the BIOS and make sure the current existing drive is still the boot drive, but it should be.

Now if you are putting them on different ribbons (old motherboard with 2 or more IDE connectors on the board) then the new drive (from the other computer) could be set as master, then you'll for sure want to check the BIOS for the right boot drive.

Basically the thing is, if you have 2 drives on 1 ribbon, one must be set as Master and the other as Slave. The corollary(?) to that is if you set them both to Cable Select. Personally I don't like Cable Select because then if you are having boot issues, in the back of your mind you will always wonder if the jumpers are right. So if you force Master and Slave you won't have to worry about that.

If this drive is SATA, none of the above applies as they don't use jumpers.

Title and first post say its an IDE drive though (he even says EIDE in the post).

All the drives we use are IDE.
Some are SATA, some are PATA'.
http://www.harddrivereport.com/pata_...ta_vs_ide.html

Sometimes though you have to believe the poster isn't completely clueless, and conforms by the accepted/commonly used terms rather than a strict definition. I skimmed your link and it still seems they differentiate SATA and ATA which they say IDE drives are.
In every case I've ever heard anyone talking about hard drives when they say IDE they are talking PATA drives. If they are talking SATA they either always state that or don't know what type of drive they have. But if someone is knowledgeable enough about their drive to call it IDE, every case I've ever heard (and I've been around this board and computers for a long time) they were referring to a PATA drive.

Furthermore the guy said EIDE, enhanced IDE. That term originated with the 40pin ribbon drives back in the day, when your only other option was SCSI. I could be wrong because I didn't go searching for a 'by the book' defination, but I'm pretty sure that only refers to PATA drives and not SATA drives.

Bottom line is this guy isn't talking about SATA, and you've just introduced unnecessary clutter to this thread on a technicality.

Your experience is the opposite of mine.
It's always best to assume the OP is clueless.
If you really think "By the book definitions" aren't necessary, I think you're wrong.
Bottom line:We don't "know" what he has. Stick around long enough and you'll learn about assumptions'

You original hard drive goes on the end of the ribbon cable. This is the drive with your OS on it. This drive is jumpered to "master".

The HDD you will be installing will go on the middle cable position. This drive will be jumpered to slave.

You need to hit the drive manufacturers website for the jumper positions, if they're not on the label of the drive.

The BIOS boot order must reflect that your original drive is >>> 2nd <<< in the boot order. This is because any optical drive in the system must be >> FIRST<<.

THAT'S ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW. Pass further at your own risk, because confusion may ensue.

"IDE" or "integrated drive electronics", is part of the universal plug and play paradigm.
This is so that the HDD is self contained, and not just a purely mechanical device that would depend on the motherboard for sole control..

So now, any "IDE" drive has its connectivity and data transfer mode standardized, and all motherboards must comply to that.

While "PATA" (parallel ATA) and "SATA" (serial ATA) do have different connectivity and controller specs, they are in fact, >>>electronically<< backwards compatible with respect to data transfer and controller method. (obviously not >> mechanically<< compatible with respect to the cable).

I've been around a long time. I've read tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of posts, and when you've read that many you get a feel for what the person is asking. I think in this case it is quite clear the OP is not talking about a SATA drive.

In your first post you even guessed they were talking about PATA before because you said no need to mess with the BIOS, only the jumper (and later said SATA don't use jumpers - technically incorrect, they can just not for Master Slave). If it was a SATA drive the only good a jumper does is enable or disable SATA I for old motherboards (or something to that effect). Why would you even address that issue in light of the original question? You wouldn't, so you guessed they were talking about PATA too, how were you able to do that?

Find me a case where EIDE is correctly used when talking about a SATA drive.

You are mostly right about definitions and their uses, but there have to be exceptions, this is an example.

When a poster says an IDE drive, even if technically IDE is SATA and PATA, the reality is they are talking about a PATA drive. Just google IDE drive SATA and find how many links compare SATA and PATA (or even sell adapters) and then see how many say they are the same.

Edit: Furthermore Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sata

I'll yield that you are right saying IDE can be both on the technicality that it is Integrated Drive Electronics, but he said EIDE in his first post, making it clear it wasn't a SATA drive.

I think you're right about EIDE, but it's also known as ATA-2, which is confusing.
The OP seems to have disappeared, but he said "EIDE, right?" and it seemed to me a clarification would be helpful.
I'll grant that the the OP is "probably" talking about a PATA drive, but "probably" isn't good enough for me.
I'm not going to quibble any more, but this would have been much easier had the OP confirmed the drive type.