getting a new computer and have kind of a tech question
 

I am getting a new computer, I should be picking it up today (I hope) and I will be taking tomorrow off to get it completely set up and ready to go. But I have a question; right now I am using an XP box but the new computer will have windows 7. I have 3 hard drives on my old machine that are not the C drive and I need to have the data on those drives available on my new machine. I am not keeping the old computer (my youngest son wants it) and I am not comfortable with partitioning.

So would I be able to pull my hard drives and put them in the new computer or would there be a compatibility issue

If there would be a compatibility issue could I get an external drive, move everything onto it and then save it to one of my older hard drives that has been formatted for windows 7?

I sliced and diced to have only the information I absolutely must have so it is only around 30 GB that I need to move

if anyone has any insight it would be appreciated :)

You can move your drives into the new machine without a problem :)

I always recommend to have two drives on your stationary computer. One for the operating system and installed programs and one for data and other stuff you want ot save from crashes, viruses and stuff. It's always eaier to have a seond drive already mounted inside for this. The of course, for safety, it's a good precaution to also have a separate external drive to back up things to. But for the normal, everyday use, I much prefer to have the data disk already munted. less cables, less things which crave it's own power, it's always on when the computer is on and so on and on. Less troubles all in all. Spend the extra hundred bucks and get a second disk mounted inside it already now.

There is no compatibility issue for program/data files between Win XP and Win 7.

Thanks to both of you. it helps a lot. I will definitely just install my other HDs into the new machine :)

I wouldn't mount an old disk in a new computer. It's worth getting a new drive, they are pretty cheap anyways. Then you will have equipment of just about equal age in the computer. They will have been produced with the same technology and not be worn out or so from already being active for three or more years. It will just save you from potential data loss and crashes due to the fact that one of the disks might not cope with the pace of the rest of the new system. Equipment of equal length is key to have a top system running as smooth as possible.

I would back up all your data via copy/paste to an external drive, then try adding the new drives after your new Windows 7 box is up and running. You shouldn;t really have any issues, though check first to make sure Win7 is 32 bit (vs 64 bit) as Win 7 will prompt you that it needs to 'scan and fix' drives formatted under a 32 bit OS. I ignore that warnng, and it's never caused me any problems. Any problems you do run into would be because of the change from 32 bit to 64 bit, but if you back up your data, you're always safe.

I copied all my needed data from Win XP SP2 to a couple Western Digital external drives, and my Win 7 64 bit laptop has no trouble reading/using the data, aside from the aforementioned warning. Good luck!

Exactly right.

The only problems "could" be with the drive holding the OS. Which as said, your drives are not c drive.

What machine are you getting?

Rather than recycling old hard drives, you should buy a new one. New drives will have much greater capacity and be more reliable. Keep in mind that hard drives have limited lives, since they are constantly spinning and there is wear and tear. You will be kicking yourself that you didn't spend the $100 to buy a new one, when your old drive finally crashes and you lose all your data. NewEgg has a 1-day promo today for 10% off any HDD.

Since you only have 30GB of data that you want from your old drives, you should copy it all to your new hard drive. I upgraded to Win 7 recently and didn't have any problems with the OS recognizing old drives that were formatted with Win XP. Don't forget to change the jumpers for your old hard drives to the slave position.

If they're IDE then he might have a problem, newer mainboards may only have one IDE port, or none at all.

The solution in that case is to find an external IDE-USB enclosure (which may also be rare these days) and copy the data that way.

Wow, great information! I found out I won't be getting the box until tomorrow evening so it looks like my saturday will be sent setting up the new machine which sucks big time. I think what I will attempt to do is plug in the old HD, then copy everything onto the new C drive and leave the old one in there for temp files (videos I will be compressing and what not)

Thanks for all the good info people, you've helped quite a bit :)

Is that what the SLI bridge is for?