Adding HDD from one PC into another PC, what to look out for?

[sooby]

Howdy,

Work is upgrading their PC's so the old rig I work on is now surplus to requirements and the boss says I can take it home (for overtime / flexible working hours etc).

Our nine year old home PC is constantly BSOD crashing, and is probably not long for this world. Is it possible to install my old home PC hard drive into work PC?

I'm not so much thinking of the extra storage, more that the existing programs & files on the old HDD would be a hassle to transfer over. I mean things like thousands of mp3s, MS money files, MS Outlook email configuration, any any programs that we'd have to pay for again to transfer to new PC HDD.

How compatible are two different hard disk drives, when home one runs XP home & work one runs XP pro?

Is transferring the HDD from the old PC into the new PC likely to migrate my BSOD problems too? I think the BSOD problems are memory related, this shouldn't effect the new PC if using new PC's memory, right?

Are there any other pros & cons of a duel HDD setup I need to be aware of?


Specs of work PC:
MS windows XP pro ver.2002 service pack 2
Dell dimension DM061 Intel core 2 CPU
4300 @ 1.80GHz
1.79GHz, 3.00 GB of RAM
180HDD

Specs of home PC: TBA

Appreciate any help & ideas!

[Bryan]

Is the Boss giving the PC to you or just loaning it? If it's a loaner I wouldn't add your programs to it just in case he wants it back!

If he is giving it to you, that's another matter.

Yes, you could remove "YOUR" harddrive and add it to the boss' PC. Make sure the Boss' HDD is jumpered as Master and yours as slave. Now you can move or copy your files to the boss' HDD.

Certain programs (MS Money and Outlook) will need to be reinstalled to the boss' HDD. I'm sure other members will want to comment too.

[Speedy Gonzales]

Any programs you'll have to reinstall. You cant copy programs to another hdd, and expect them to work. They wont. You can copy contacts / docs across / maybe settings. It depends what the BSOD stop error is, whether its the memory or something else. And if youre going to keep it, install XP SP3 on it. Or will you format the hdd?

[sooby]

Thanks guys - thats exactly what I needed to know!

[feersumendjinn]

Make sure the Boss' HDD is jumpered as Master and yours as slave

If they are Sata drives, make Bosses HDD the first drive (boot drive), and yours second.

[Lawrence]

Just install the other drive and you will have to transfer your files across,sure it will take time but you don't have to sit there and watch it

Pays to have a plan when moving stuff over

Get the software you want to install sorted(and their "keys" if needed),sounds like you have MS Office so get that installed as it sometimes gives you grief on installing

At least you are going from XP toXP so you know things are going to work and have no conflicts