I have recently built a pc, works fine. My parents want a new pc and I've decided to give them my old pc. The Hard drive on my parents pc has alot of documents and programs that they want so heres my question..

Can I put the hard drive from my parents pc into my new pc? will it boot up and recognise the documents and programs straight away (like windows, outlook, internet explorer settings, etc) or do i have to carry out certain steps.

Cheers.

Oh, also meant to ask,

my newly constructed PC makes a really high pitched sound which i think is coming from a fan which could be the CPU, the fan, the graphics card or something is. Any ideas how to fix?

[Edited by Recaro - 10/17/2002 8:06:14 PM]

i know Win 2000 is Motherboard specific

wondows 98 is on my parents hard drive.

If its Win98 it should be ok, might need the original CD to install files for new devices found.

Regarding the sound, best to take the cover off and have a look, probably going to be a fan bearing gone.

if it is a bearing, how do i repair it?

I wouldn't bother. Just get a new fan, they're less than a tenner anyway.

If it's a really high pitched noise, it might be a capacitor about to end it's life. You'll need to open the case and track it down by ear.

If you just stick the drive in your new PC, Win 98 should detect the different hardware and hopefully just prompt for the CD to install any drivers. The only real problem would be the video car and possibly drivers for the motherboard and modem (if you've got one). At worst you'll get a VGA display with 16 colours and not the best performance out of your motherboard.

You can just download the drivers specific to the PC and you're back in business. All the programs should work straight away as they have no connection with the hardware (other than maybe needing to have a modem re-installed if you use that for net access).

Stefan

Here's what you need to do.

1. create a master and slave hard drive pair - There's usually a set of 4 pins with a jumper over two of the pins. If you look up the manufacturers web site you should be able to identify which pins need to be covered by the connecting jumper. set your PC hard disk to the maseter and the old HDD to the slave
2. boot up you new PC - you can only boot from one operating system and therefore by setting your new PC's HDD to master it will boot as normal.
3. go into Windows explorer and copy the files from the old drive to the new one.

I assume your new PC has a grey cable with two thin rectangular connectors running from the motherboard the standard Hard disk. Sometimes the HDD's have a little sticker showing the jumper positions so you might not need to surf the web.

It's quite easy and there's no danger of losing files - famous last words!!

Phil