when putting a HD into a new pc as a slave..
 

My main pc crashed, HD is ok, must be a memory problem. I decided to build a whole new PC, and just put this HD in as the 2nd. If I put it in as the slave, will all the programs, etc continue to work on the new machine or do I need to reinstall everything.. i know the data should be called, just curious if I will have to reinstall everything, and want to avoid any surprises when i turn it on for the first time...

you should be okay, make sure you have it set to slave drive though...

Wont work and if they do its not reliable: program installations depend on data in the windows registry which wont be availabe after a new installation.

If the HD's are ok why not simply move the HD's to the new pc?

You need to install new drivers and such but you could continue where you left off.

Old HD was 80 gigs with about 55 used.. new HD is 250 gigs.. figured it would be better for the pc, run smoother, etc?

The OS and applications wont use more than 20 gigs.

So if i were you (depending how old the HD is) id set the old disk as master
so you can run your OS and applications as you used to and use the new
drive as a secundary and store your data on it as soon as you get things running.

btw (but thats just my humble opinion) its not smart to use a large drive (> 40 gig) for you OS since your OS requires a lot of disk reading/writing and large drives crash faster.
Ideal setup: small disk (80 max) for your OS and apps.
Larger secudairy drives for data storage.

I'm going to assume you use XP.

Ignore the poster above me, install from scratch. Putting an old OS drive in a new system is just asking for problems, if it works for you at all.

Agreed.... even if it isnt XP.... fresh install is always the best.

agreed.

and i'd copy the 80gig to the 250gig hd then install your os on the 80. use the 250 as storage. things should be quicker if you use them right.

Wipe it out and start fresh..it sucks but you'll run into errors

True. My experience is based on win2k.

But dont forget my small disk comment + running preinstalled applications wont work reliable.

I wouldn't even say it sucks .. It's kind of pain, but it's sure nice to have a fresh install. Everything runs so much smoother, you'll kill the spyware and other mal ware you mostly likely have somewhere, etc etc. ;)

just sent you a nice icq msg about it.

It's likely that a lot of your applications will not work as the drive letters and other locations that are stored in the Windows registry will not resolve to the correct locations. The best bet would be to back up the image of the old drive to CD ROM using Ghost or DriveImage and then re-install the applications you rely on for your day to day operation and then restore the data you need from the old hard disk. Once you have all of your data restored, you can then clean up the old hard disk. You'll still have the image of the old drive which you'll be able to restore files from if you need to.

i did this EXACT same thing about 3-4 months ago

your programs WILL NOT WORK, because they call the the "C" path, which is now your new master drive

you will still be able to browse that slave drive and all files on that drive will function, but you have lost all of your programs and must re-install to the new drive, and you must also import microsoft outlook ".dbx" (or whatever it is i forget) files over to the new drive to continue using, otherwise you've also just lost all your emails

yah, i will reinstall everything.. pretty interesting about the whole transfer the 80 gigs to the 250, use the 80 one as the master, and the 250 as the secondary... is that a given to do that or will it not matter if the 250 is the master?

you probably want to use the 250 as the master, if its new it will be faster then the 80 that could be 5400 rpm or have less then 8mb cache.

Whenever I do a new system I always use a new hd.