switching in an old hard drive

Hi,

im planing on buying the asus s96j, and I dont feel like paying for an expensive 7200rpm HD, when I already have one sitting in my compal CL56.

I was wondering how hard/how complicated it would be to switch hard drives from my compal into my asus? I already have a lot of stuff installed on my 7200rpm; I dont feel like reinstalling programs that i dont have cds for. Also, I hope to keep whatever I had on my compal after the HD switch.

so

#1. is there a way to keep stuff on my hard drive (including programs) and not be screwed in my registry and stuff.
#2. Is switching out the harddrive (without doing anyhting) and sticking it into the asus a bad idea?
#3. is it just a matter of unscrew, unplug, plug and screw in?
#4. if all else fails, do I have to clear out my HD of everything, and do the switch?
#5. is there a way to exactly duplicate my 7200rpm drive onto a cheaper 5400rpm drive and replace it without hiccups?

answering any/all these quewstions would be really apprecaiated! thanks!

 

well first off make sure they have the same interface (ata-6 or sata). then find where the hdd is located(most now are located on the bottom under an easily removed panel, but some are not so easy...**** averatec). Now before you touch anything get an ESD strap and ground yourself to something metal(aluminum doesnt work here), and then remove the screws holding the hdd in and be gentle, laptops cant be manhandled like desktops. The gently disconnect the drive and remove any proprietary adapter and do the same for the new notebook.

When this is all said and done, verify proper boot. Youll need to install drivers and software for the new lappy and then enjoy.

 

Well yes it should be as easy as just unscrewing it and then pluging it into the other laptop well its more of a sliding it into the other laptop but either is easy and as long as you dont do any harm to the drive while ur taking it out then the info should all be there just one thing that you mite have to do is mess with the bios on the new laptop and/or make the jumper pins on the HD in the correct setting(s), if for some reason you cant do this then you could back up info on either a flash drive or an external drive (HD) and as long as you have the same capacity on both drives the info will be the same on both just slower read times, there are also some programs on www.download.com that can help you do all of this trasnfering of programs depending on the route you take to do this

 

oh ok, so technically theres nothing except pure files on a HD then? I never really was sure whether there were non-accessible files that you can't just copy from windows explorer and paste into another HD.

 

anything u wish to view or copy or do anything to should be available in windows explorer **just make sure you make hidden items not hidden by going into the folder options**

 

Those things have no effect. Just make sure to ground yourself on something, and don't stand on a carpet (those things are good at electrostatic)

You've got your data on one HD, and you want to plug that into a new notebook, correct? If so, it should work fine without you having to reinstall anything.

Alternatively, if you want to copy the contents (including OS) of one HD onto another, you can do that, but it won't be bootable. In that case, you may have to reinstall Windows (or you might be able to get away with rewriting the boot sector through XP's recovery console)

 

thanks for the help guys.

ive been looking at:
seagate mobile hard drive, 60GB 7200.1 RPM 2.5IN ATA/100 8MB CACHE

is that compatible with the s96j? It would seem so, but the s96j specs says "SATA" ... = serial ATA? is that just the long form of "ATA"?

http://www.ncix.com/products/index....T96023A&manufacture=SEAGATE-HARD DRIVE MOBILE

OR (I think its the same one):
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2342002&Sku=TMD-60A3

im buying off NCIX so I plan to do price matching , 'cause il pay 30$ more for a 7200RPM that way I dont ahve to go through all that trouble.

 

no ata-6 or just ata is different the sata. Sata is serial interface and ata is parralell. They have completly different transfer rates and interfaces.

 

I would purchase a portable backup solution just in case, they are good to have anyways. You will probably have to reactivate windows, and reinstall alot of drivers due to the new hardware. Make sure you get the network drivers for the new asus first, this way you can at least get the new computer online to find the other drivers easier. And btw, SATA is NOT compatable with ATA. Good Luck

 

You can't put an ATA/100 drive in a SATA/150 interface as posted - they are entirely different connections.

What you can do with your old drive is put it in an external 2.5" enclosure - Newegg has them for low prices. I bought this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145124

 

If you do put it in the other computer and have issues booting into windows, boot up in safe mode and delete all the drivers that are listed and then reboot. That is about the only issue I've run into while putting HDD's in different computers for clients.

Sometimes it boots and tries to load drivers that obviously aren't for that computers parts and it locks up.

 

Question: does Hard Drives have drivers for itself? I know for memory u can pop it in and it will work right away... whats the deal with HD's? If thats the case then heres what I feel I can do:


Compal (old comp w/ 7200RPM drive):
1. Clear out all large files (movies, music) onto an External HD.
2. make a backup of my whole old computer, with all its programs installed, using symantec Ghost, put that on DVD(s).
3. Completely clear out my old HD.
4. replace old HD with new (crappier) one.
5. Place in backup disks, and run.
6. Readd my music/movies.

Asus (new comp w/ 5400RPM drive):
7. make a backup dvd.
8. completely clear out my new HD
9. place in my old (but faster) 7200RPM drive.
10. place in backup disks, and run.

does this work? This way im hoping that I can make sure all my programs still work.

 

Is it an ATA drive or a SATA drive? If you say it's old, it is probably an ATA drive and therefore will not be interchangeable if the new laptop has a SATA interface.

 

I have just realized that you are right. I guess I just have to be another 7200RPM SATA HD. Thanks for your help.