quick question Using old hard drive

[gotsand]

i have a old ide hard drive out of my old computer...can i just put it in my new one and set it to slave and use it..even though its got all the old windows 2k on it...i just want it for storage and it has alot of music and pics on it.

or do i have to do something special

 

[NXIL]

Yes, if you have an IDE port in the new PC, you can just plug it in.

If there is already a drive on the IDE channel, and that one is set to Master, yes, set the old IDe to slave.

I would make a back up of the data on that old IDE drive....you should have another copy of it, on DVD, or on a portable drive, or something.

Win2K on the old disk is not an issue....it will be formatted in NTFS most likely, but, even formatted FAT32 your new PC will be able to read the data off it.

HTH

NXIL.

 

[Denithor]

Install in new system, copy all data onto your new drive, then format the old drive and use for storage.

You could even prolong its life by getting an IDE->USB adapter kit and using it as an external drive (so it's only powered on when you need to use it).

Keep in mind, drives don't last forever so I wouldn't keep anything critical on an old drive without having a backup copy (ie burned to DVD) just in case. I have seen too many people lose 3-5 years worth of photos/videos/etc of their kids because they didn't have any sort of backup when their primary/only drive failed completely without warning.