Hard Drive swap w/o format?

[tifc8lraz]

My parents' computer is getting up there in age, and is now just too slow for them to work on. I have, in storage, my old Dell Optiplex computer, which is up and ready for them to use. It has no hard drive, but they will supply their 10gb hard drive for the computer. The only thing, is that they do not want to format the hard drive when I install it into the new (old) computer. Is it possible to do this?

 

[iss]

What OS? if the chipsets are different between the two machines then no it proobably wont work. if the OS is XP you could do a repair install of windows.

 

[Jasio-]

Is it possible to just backup the harddrive on a DVD disk and upload it once you install it? 10 gb's isnt to much..

 

[tifc8lraz]

The only dvd-r's I have are 4.7gb's. Will changing the IDE Host Driver to dual channeling work (read it in another post? And yes, it is Windows Xp

 

[i_am_a_newbie]

What OS? if the chipsets are different between the two machines then no it proobably wont work. if the OS is XP you could do a repair install of windows.

I recall a thread that explained how to do exactly what he wanted.

Something in the XP CD removing all hardware specific drivers from the installation and being able to install them on a new system.

Thread seems to have disappeared though..(it was a sticky in the OS section)

edit

I actually found it here

Wouldn't that work?

 

[tifc8lraz]

I had looked at that and forgot about it, thanks for bringing it to my attention.

 

[iss]

Just make sure to back up any valuable data before trying either method.

 

[tifc8lraz]

Well, 6 1/2 hours later, everything is up and running. Had to format the drive, and reinstall Windows. The cd-drive doesn't work in this computer, so I had to wire the one in the old computer into this one, and it was a mess. I tried to format it using mypersonal computer and my hard drive blew! I will have to call Western Digital today and see what can be done.