Putting old hard drive into a different computer

[arisenfury]

Ok so my 1.5 year old computer's hard drive fried earlier this week so I used it as an excuse to go get a new one. So I have this pretty good computer that's just sitting around and all it needs is a new hard drive so I found my father's old laptop that I thought he no longer needed. Of course it was one of those pain in the ass kinds where you have to unscrew the whole bottom and lift off the keyboard kinda deals to get to the hard drive unlike my old one where you can just unscrew a door on the bottom to access it. Needless to say I rip open his old Vaio and his HDD was EIDE and my old computer is SATA. So next thing I know he says he needs that laptop because all the old taxes are on it. I managed to get most of it back together, it boots up fine and all his files are still there, but the keyboard is kinda warped, the mouse no longer works and it won't recognize USB mice and the wireless card broke loose as well. But now I found my old Toshiba from like 3 years ago and it has an access door for the HDD and it's EIDE as well, and the only thing that was wrong was that the HDD on that one fried as well.

So the main point of this... can I put the working HDD from my father's Vaio, into my old Toshiba and have it boot up with the Windows on that HDD and all it's files? Or would I have to reformat it and lose everything? I don't care if it won't have most of the drivers for the Toshiba things I just want it so he can get his files and see them. Any help is appreciated.

[Izzy]

Originally Posted by arisenfury

Ok so my 1.5 year old computer's hard drive fried earlier this week so I used it as an excuse to go get a new one. So I have this pretty good computer that's just sitting around and all it needs is a new hard drive so I found my father's old laptop that I thought he no longer needed. Of course it was one of those pain in the ass kinds where you have to unscrew the whole bottom and lift off the keyboard kinda deals to get to the hard drive unlike my old one where you can just unscrew a door on the bottom to access it. Needless to say I rip open his old Vaio and his HDD was EIDE and my old computer is SATA. So next thing I know he says he needs that laptop because all the old taxes are on it. I managed to get most of it back together, it boots up fine and all his files are still there, but the keyboard is kinda warped, the mouse no longer works and it won't recognize USB mice and the wireless card broke loose as well. But now I found my old Toshiba from like 3 years ago and it has an access door for the HDD and it's EIDE as well, and the only thing that was wrong was that the HDD on that one fried as well.

So the main point of this... can I put the working HDD from my father's Vaio, into my old Toshiba and have it boot up with the Windows on that HDD and all it's files? Or would I have to reformat it and lose everything? I don't care if it won't have most of the drivers for the Toshiba things I just want it so he can get his files and see them. Any help is appreciated.

You could probably find an adapter to just connect it to a desktop so you can take out the necessary files. The registry and drivers are going to be for the Sony, not the Toshiba, so Windows may boot but not work properly. Never really tried it before, so it's all speculation on my part.

[Cr8tive_leo]

Easiest way to reclaim files off a 2.5 notebook drive is buy an inexpensive external chassis ($10 - $20) pop in the drive and voila, access.

You can swap the drives too, it will boot, you won't have sound drivers, video drivers, etc. unless they have the same audio and video card. (although, there are different types of 2.5 inch drives, different thickness... newer systems use the thinner drives, older systems use the thicker drives, 9mm and something else)

You also can boot into safe mode to access the drive, this way no drivers or registry entries will be loaded.

Many different options, I'd go with the external chassis for a quick solution.
Canada Computers - Hard Drive Enclosures > 2.5" Enclosures : Vantec NST-285U2-BK 2.5" NEXSTAR SX External HDD Enclosure Black.

[arisenfury]

Well the Sony boots but, the screen is damaged from a fall a while back, but it doesn't recognize mice and it's just being an all around pain in the ass to use. He said he needs to use the Sony because it has Quicken '05 on it, otherwise I'd just go and buy the enclosure. But if I can find the power cord to my old Toshiba I may try that, both are the same style of HDD, my main concern is that if I try to load it up on the Toshiba that it won't reformat it or anything without me telling it to. IDK I'll figure something out, thanks for the suggestions though.

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Cr8tive_leo again."

[Cr8tive_leo]

It wont reformat it for sure *I've done a hd swap between my old TOshiba satalite and my Dell 1210 without issues.*

Good luck, find that power cord!

[FunkPnut]

Well arisenfury, if you haven't figured out a solution, here's what I'd try.

If you can't find the power cord for your Toshiba, you can always pickup a universal power cord from Best Buy for like $30-40. It will fit basically any laptop.

If that is not an option, you could try getting an external USB enclosure for the Vaio HD and then on a desktop, boot from the external HD. You will have to change the boot order in BIOS. This will most likely cause some weird errors, but it should be good enough to open Quicken and export the data files.

If your VAIO is Windows XP Pro, the hardwired NIC is functioning, and you can navigate enough around Windows to setup remote desktop, try this. Plug the VAIO into a router via the NIC, enable incoming remote desktop connection, and from another computer that is on the same network, remotely connect to the VAIO and run the Quicken export remotely.

Alternatively, you could try installing VNC on the VAIO if it is Window XP Home (this version does not allow incoming remote desktop connection) and connecting via a VNC viewer.

[Duce2k]

Get a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter, that will plug directly to the ribbon cable on a desktop, you can then transfer whatever files you need from the laptop drive to the desktop drive. I use these all the time at my job for transferring clients' data from fried machines with working hard drives, or hard drives that will not boot into windows but can still be seen as a secondary drive in Windows. You should be able to find them at Radio Shack or Fry's.

[volvo9]

/\ those drive adapters will be your best option, and they are cheap too.

If you put it into another laptop it's not going to boot up unless you use save mode, and even then it's not guaranteed to happen.

[ronin]

Windows XP from the Vaio should work in the Toshiba. Just expect to see some (maybe more then a few) error messages and devices not working correctly.

The chances of anything reformating is none since you won't be running anything that will end up formatting the drive. However, there is a ever so slim change of the hard drive freaking out on its own and dying.

[ronin]

Originally Posted by volvo9

/\ those drive adapters will be your best option, and they are cheap too.

If you put it into another laptop it's not going to boot up unless you use save mode, and even then it's not guaranteed to happen.

Safe mode - Hit F8 after the bios screen before Windows starts loading. You will be given a list of options. Safe mode and Safe mode with networking will the 1st two.