Question about switching out hard drives.

[Ryan]

I currently have a WD Hard drive in my computer (from gateway). Its been having problems, so gateway decided to send me a replacement, a Maxtor D740X-6L. I have about 20GBs of MP3s, etc that I'm gonna keep. Would it be OK if I disconnected the WD, connected the Maxtor and installed Windows XP, then Connected the WD and just transfered the files over?

 

[bozo1]

yup

 

[cleverhandle]

You can also save a bit of work for yourself by simply disabling the hard drive in the BIOS - one less time to get inside your case.

 

[Yossarian]

Use Norton Ghost to copy the image of the old drive to the new and save yourself the trouble of reinstalling Windows.

 

[4824guy]

You can also download the WD Lifeguard tools software and use that to clone the first HD to the second. That way you don't have to do a clean install, assuming that the first HD has no software related problems.

 

[Jiggz]

If your only concern is to transfer the mp3 files to the hdd. I would stick with your original idea. Since you are having problems with the orignal hdd, doing a ghost or clone of the existing hdd will prevent you from determining if the problem is hardware or software related. With a clean install, you should be able to tell if the problem is software or hardware related with your new hdd even with the old hdd too. It involves more work but at least you know where you're starting and hoping to finish while finding along the way where the original problem actually lies.

 

[Ryan]

I wanted to do a clean install first, just because I need to. I also don't know what's causing the problem with my computer, but since gateway wants to send me a new HD, I thought a clean install would be best.

 

[slowbutsure]

Install your Maxtor HD and load your operating system on it then take the WD and jumper it to slave settings and mount it as slave on the first ide cable, then drag and drop your MP3's onto the new drive. Has worked for me every time with no problems.