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Putting an old disk in a new PC

J

jgreetham

Well-Known Member
Hi all,

My old PC (Win XP Home) bit the dust. I have the feeling the disk controller went - it would not even boot from my Norton Ghost recovery startup disk. So, I'd like to try adding the old system disk to the new PC (Win 7 Ultimate) - not to boot from, just to use. In the specs on the web it says only SATA. I assume that since the old PC is ~6 yr old, its disk is IDE. I see there are adapters for SATA/IDE. So, would this be possible, advisable, etc? I'm not a hardware guy so please let me know if I need to provide additional information.
 
jgreetham said:
Hi all,

My old PC (Win XP Home) bit the dust. I have the feeling the disk controller went - it would not even boot from my Norton Ghost recovery startup disk. So, I'd like to try adding the old system disk to the new PC (Win 7 Ultimate) - not to boot from, just to use. In the specs on the web it says only SATA. I assume that since the old PC is ~6 yr old, its disk is IDE. I see there are adapters for SATA/IDE. So, would this be possible, advisable, etc? I'm not a hardware guy so please let me know if I need to provide additional information.
Click to expand...
Your better off spending the $15-25 and get a new sata drive. You can get adapters but there going to be around the same price. Sata is going to be much faster than IDE also.
 
lunatic59 said:
Definitely not advisable. If it works at all, it will drag the performance of your entire system down while taxing the power supply and shortening its life. If you want to use it as extra storage get a cheap USB 2.0 drive enclosure for it like this Speed Metal 3.5" USB 2.0 Aluminum External IDE HDD Enclosure (Black) Speed Metal
Click to expand...
I think he is refering to the disc drive not the hard drive because he said norton ghost wouldnt even boot.

Check one of these: Newegg.com - ASUS Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - CD / DVD Burners
Newegg.com - LITE-ON Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 24X DVD Writer
 
Thanks y'all. I do mean the disk drive not the DVD drive. I just mentioned it to note that it won't boot from either drive.

Any suggestions on how to wipe it before disposal? A big speaker magnet or something like that? I think that is my biggest concern - there's a lot of PII on it.
 
I just did something like this. I pulled an old ide drive from an old computer. I bought this very nice hard drive enclosure:

Amazon.com: ineo I-NIA315Ue, 3.5 Inch IDE/ SATA Hybrid Hard Drive Mesh Iron Enclosure to USB 2.0/ eSATA (Black): Electronics

51CYWhYZo6L.jpg


I placed the hard drive inside, connected it via USB to my router, mapped it and voila, Instant network share drive. By putting the drive into the enclosure you turn it into a portable hard drive.

Now download a program called EASEUS PARTITION MASTER. Connect your new portable drive to the computer's USB port. When you see the drive appear, Open Aeseus and select the drive. Look to see if there is more than one partition. if there are, remove all but the main NTFS partition and then expand the NTFS partition to cover the entire disk. Click apply and let the program do it's thing. when it is finished, in file explorer, right click on the drive right and select Format. Go through the prompts and let the PC format it (choose NTFS). You now have a fully clean portable USB hard drive ready for use, which can be read by pretty much any computer system. All it cost you was $30 and a little bit of time.

BTW There are smaller enclosures out there, but this one is fairly high end, it lets you mount SATA or IDE drives, allows you to connect via USB or eSATA, and most importantly one entire side is mesh, which allows for excellent ventilation and heat dissipation (which is a major issue with most enclosures that don't use cooling fans - such as most portable hard drives).
 
Best way to dispose of a HDD is to just drive a nail though the disk. This is after you whipe it as well
 
SoulTerror said:
Best way to dispose of a HDD is to just drive a nail though the disk. This is after you whipe it as well
Click to expand...
Reformatting the drive will accomplish the same thing and you'll save yourself a nail. That plus you'll be able to donate the drive to someone who can use it, or reuse it yourself, as opposed to destroying it. :D
 
He asked for the best way to dispose of it since it has a lot of PI on it. So I'm assuming he wanted to do more then just wipe the disk.
 
Yeah you'd be surprised what you can recover after formatting
Unforunately tho, my Dad deleted my ENTIRE 8GBs Of Symbain OS Modding Files and I could not recover :( :(
 
Isthmus said:
Reformatting the drive will accomplish the same thing and you'll save yourself a nail. That plus you'll be able to donate the drive to someone who can use it, or reuse it yourself, as opposed to destroying it. :D
Click to expand...

Or download DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke), do a military grade wipe then you're good to hand on without worrying about the data.

Personally i junk my old drives by drilling multiple holes through them and leaving them for 24 hours in a bucket of water.
Anyone who spends the
 
SoulTerror said:
He asked for the best way to dispose of it since it has a lot of PI on it. So I'm assuming he wanted to do more then just wipe the disk.
Click to expand...
True, but as i said, reformatting the disk will permanently wipe out all personal information beyond the ability of recovery (to the best of my knowledge even with forensic tools - please do correct me if this is wrong). If you reformat it instead of destroying it, you get your original goal and you get a spare working drive out of the deal.
 
I've got another old machine running Server 2003. Maybe I'll see if it'll go in there & get some more use out of it.
If not then it'll be the drill + drowning technique.
 
Isthmus said:
True, but as i said, reformatting the disk will permanently wipe out all personal information beyond the ability of recovery (to the best of my knowledge even with forensic tools - please do correct me if this is wrong). If you reformat it instead of destroying it, you get your original goal and you get a spare working drive out of the deal.
Click to expand...

I've been taught that you can recover data that is about 7 formats old with the proper tools. I'm going to be taking a computer forensics class soon so maybe I'll come back to this topic after that class :D
 
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