Want to save the entire contents of my pc hard drive on an external HD

[meganfurley]

Hi
I am new and not too good at PC stuff! My apologies if I sound wrong or airy.
I have changed my PC recently and removed the hard drive from my old PC. Is there any way for me to transfer the entire contents of my old hard drive into an external hard drive so that I can still access all the items as they were on my old PC ?
I tried buying an enclosure for the hard drive and connected it to my PC through an USB.....But I cannot access the files as it asks me to download the entire stuff onto my new PC ! My old PC was vista and my new one is windows 8.

Can someone help me? All I want to do is to transfer all the contents to an external and thus access them as if it were a pc hard drive.Am I talking sense?
Thanks
Megan

 

[Cerb]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ_2vgyig38

You would want to choose to save disk to disk, instead of disk to image, as he did (and, go ahead and choose resize/fill, if it asks). Always be very careful about selecting the correct source and destination devices.

Once it's done, you'll then have to give yourself permissions to the files and folders under the user folders, either by adding your current user(s) (such as your local users group), or taking ownership. That part must be done through an Administrator Explorer window.

If you still have the old computer running, you could use EaseUS Todo Backup to clone from it, right from within windows, instead.

--- OR ---

If you just want a few select files or folders instead of everything, you should be able to do that from within Windows 8 just fine, with an Administrator Explorer instance. Right-click for advanced options, choose "Run as Administrator," then browse, and take ownership. After that you will be able to read and copy the files. Just cancel out of any autorun dialogs that come up when you plug in the drive.

Some guys have made this easier than working with the security dialogs, too:
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2814-take-ownership-add-context-menu-windows-8-a.html
^ The site's legit; you can safely merge the reg file, then login again.

 

[Elixer]

Yeah, as Cerb said there are quite a few ways to deal with what your trying to do.

Since you already removed the old drive and installed it into a external unit, the hard part (for some) is basically done.

You may also need to select show hidden files, to get at your 'my documents' stuff from your vista install. Then you need to do what Cerb was saying about the 'run as administrator' if it says you don't have access to said files.
Of course, this assumes that you didn't encrypt the vista drive in the first place.
If you did, it gets much more complex.

 

[meganfurley]

Thanks so much guys! I'll have a go this weekend and let you know what happens!
Megan

 

[meganfurley]

Hi
A small snag. When I connect the hard drive of the pc with the enclosure to the new PC through an USB,it asks me to format it ! It also says 'The volume does not contain a recognised file system'.Can you explain?

 

[coffeejunkee]

Not sure what's going on here...or what you're trying to do. You want to use Vista instead of Win8? Or do you just want to copy the files from your old pc? If so, just connect the old drive to your new pc internally and copy files, or simply use both hdd's. In any case, don't format if that's your old drive in the enclosure.

 

[meganfurley]

Not sure what's going on here...or what you're trying to do. You want to use Vista instead of Win8? Or do you just want to copy the files from your old pc? If so, just connect the old drive to your new pc internally and copy files, or simply use both hdd's. In any case, don't format if that's your old drive in the enclosure.

Just want to get hold of my old files held in the hard drive of my old PC.The hard drive has been removed and put in an enclosure and connected to the new PC with an USB. When I click on the E drive it says 'I need to format' which means I'll lose my stuff.
I assumed that putting the hard drive in an enclosre would allow me to access the files like a hard drive. I was hoping to transfer all the files to a new WD External drive to access them as I want.
thanks
megan

 

[coffeejunkee]

Just want to get hold of my old files held in the hard drive of my old PC.The hard drive has been removed and put in an enclosure and connected to the new PC with an USB. When I click on the E drive it says 'I need to format' which means I'll lose my stuff.
I assumed that putting the hard drive in an enclosre would allow me to access the files like a hard drive. I was hoping to transfer all the files to a new WD External drive to access them as I want.
thanks
megan

Ok, I don't understand why Windows wants to format when you connect the external enclosure with the old drive.

But there is another way: just connect the old drive to the new pc's motherboard directly. If you don't have a spare sata cable you can use the one from the dvd drive.

 

[Elixer]

Hi
A small snag. When I connect the hard drive of the pc with the enclosure to the new PC through an USB,it asks me to format it ! It also says 'The volume does not contain a recognised file system'.Can you explain?

When you connect the external, what does disk management show ?
If it shows raw or unformatted (for all partitions), then you need to use something like testdisk to get your data back.

Most likely, it just sees the first partition, or the "recovery partition" on the drive, and doesn't know what that is.

 

[Cerb]

But there is another way: just connect the old drive to the new pc's motherboard directly. If you don't have a spare sata cable you can use the one from the dvd drive.

:thumbsup:

An enclosure should work, but internal installation pretty much always works.