Replacing hard drive

[User]

 

[rusky]

The recovery disc will work fine on the new drive.

Depending on the type of recovery disc, you may only get the same partition size as the odl drivrathern than expanding it to fill the new (assuming) larger drive.

TBH, I would keep the new drive, copy everything from the old one then wipe the old one with the recovery disc.

 

[captainhastings]

[QUOTE 1520927"]
Thanks. Would wiping the old drive make the data irrretrievable by the next user?
[/quote]

too a degree but if your passing on too people you don't know may be it would be best too use some thing like this
http://www.dban.org/

 

[Red Light]

You can but its a long and difficult task because the hardware will be different. I would suggest getting a trial copy of Acronis True Image off their website and use it to do a backup. Acronis allows a restore to different hardware so you can restore it onto the new PC and it will take care of the different hardware and drivers in the process. Then either store you old disc in a drawer or get a proper eraser programme to overwrite the data followed by a full format (not a quick format) of the disk which will then erase everything making it clean to throw away.

 

[ian turner]

I think the OP is considering replacing the drive in the old PC hence referring to removing the existing hard drive while passing it on (not trashing it).

I would never suggest installing a system drive image from an old PC into a different PC even with software that claims to replace the drivers as it's still going to be a half baked hybrid with debatable performance and all the mangled registry
of the old system.

 

[_aD]

I'd say skip the factory restore CDs as they often come with pre-installed crap, stupid settings and as said before will have a fixed partition size. Chances are you'll need to download the drivers for the computer which you can do beforehand - just look up the model number of the computer on the manufacturer's web site.

If you find a problem you can't overcome using this method, then fall back on the recovery CD as a last resort.

 

[goo_mason]

You can but its a long and difficult task because the hardware will be different. I would suggest getting a trial copy of Acronis True Image off their website and use it to do a backup. Acronis allows a restore to different hardware so you can restore it onto the new PC and it will take care of the different hardware and drivers in the process. Then either store you old disc in a drawer or get a proper eraser programme to overwrite the data followed by a full format (not a quick format) of the disk which will then erase everything making it clean to throw away.

I recently had to replace the motherboard & HDD in my main PC, and was very glad of my Acronis Trueimage backups!

(Despite replacing the dying motherboard with exactly the same one (bought reconditioned from eBay) & restoring the damaged HDD contents onto a new HDD, I still had to run a Windows Recovery installation as many of the hardware drivers just weren't recognised. After that solved the remaining issues, I was able to boot up fully and reinstall my hardware drivers again from the original CDs).

 

[2Loose]

I would never suggest installing a system drive image from an old PC into a different PC even with software that claims to replace the drivers as it's still going to be a half baked hybrid with debatable performance and all the mangled registry
of the old system.

"Never suggest" is good advice when you can do it all properly, but I can with plenty of experience say that Acronis True Image really does work very well indeed and doesn't appear to leave any detritus even when transferring an image to a completely new architecture. We have used it for quite a few servers now, including virtualisations and even going from old P2 systems to multi cpu multi core servers they have been faultless in their performance.

Obviously I agree that installing from scratch is the ideal, but when after a quick\dirty\emergency solution when old hardware dies, it really is a great product.

 

[ian turner]

Still irrelevant as the OP is doing a clean install on a new drive to save the effort of deep cleaning the old one and replacing it with a new pc with no indication that it comes without an OS installed. The first response was all they needed.
A number of the responses seem to have gone off on a tangent