Moving a hard drive to a new computer simple?

BubblemanBubbleman A Desert
edited April 2008 in Hardware
Hey I am planning on building my own computer soon and do I have to reformat my current drive I have partitioned if I plan on using it on the different computer?

Or can I just throw it in the new computer and it will run?

Also if you can help me or some tutorial on how external drives work. I want to keep my hard drive backed up at all times now.

Comments

  • NiGHTSNiGHTS San Diego Icrontian
    edited April 2008
    AFAIK, a Windows install will not allow you to just rip a HD out of one computer and plop it into another. The OS will ask to be reinstalled. This is assuming you're going to use that HD from computer one as the main HD in computer two.

    However, if it's just being used as a data storage drive, you're good to go. You're also not going to run into any problems going from a master drive in computer one to a slave drive in computer two.

    I'll let someone else handle the external drive question. You may want to clarify what exactly you mean by how they work. Are you asking more along the lines of "what do I need to get myself started with an external backup?"
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited April 2008
    If it is a similar chipset you can do a "Repair Instal". You can see if it boots with the old drive first. Then do the repair install if it does. I would actually prefer to do a clean install on a fresh system myself to be sure you don't have any problems in the future.

    Most external drives come with backup software. Or you can use one of many on the market these days.
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