[eaglei]

What is the proper way to transfer files from a PC that has stopped working to a new PC?

Issue:
I suspect the power supply died in my old PC. It would not power up and I tried alternate power strips and wall sockets to ensure no issues with power source. I extracted the HDD from my old PC and am debating how is best to access and copy some of my most recent data files (music, pictures, docs) onto the new PC. I have an external back-up drive that has most of my files - just missing about a month worth of updates.

Questions:
1) Do I purchase a HDD enclosure to power up the drive or try to add the drive to the new PC? The enclosure option is certainly the easiest way - I think. What say you?

2) Also will the old drive - once connected and powered - try to boot the old OS? Just curious what complications I should expect and how to avoid them.

Thank you for your advice.


Basics on the PC's:
Old PC
Pentium 4 with HyperThreading (i got a lot of miles out of this one)
HP tower w/ Windows XP Home Media Center
HDD - Western Digital SATA 250GB

New PC
Intel i7
HP tower w/ Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
HDD - 1TB (have not looked to find more details)

[cwwozniak]

An external enclosure would be the easiest way. If the new PC has an open expansion bay and a spare SATA port on the motherboard, it would take a small amount of work to install the old drive in the new PC.

Unless you make changes in the BIOS settings, the computer should not automatically try to boot from the old drive.

There may be an issue where you get access denied error messages if you try to open folders on the old drive. In that case you will need to take ownership of the folders and files.

[Hughv]

These cables are even easier and may come in handy for future projects.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...4&sku=ULT40112

[eaglei]

Thank you both for the replies. I will have a go at adding this drive as a 2nd internal drive and if I get stumped then buy the cables. Sounds like either way it should be pretty straight-forward once I complete the connection. No worries then about booting the other OS. Thank you