It’s becoming time to buy a new PC, rather than upgrade the one I have.
But I want to just bring my HD to the new machine. I have Win 7 which I really want to keep and I have an old Photoshop CS2 that I really don’t want the hassle of moving that to a new machine.
So can I buy a new machine with no hard drive or programs?
Just build one.
There are lots of little store-front computer shops out there. Any of them would be happy to build you the skeleton of a PC you’re describing. Or, yeah, buy the components and build it yourself. That really ought to be dead simple: a frame, a power supply, a motherboard, and a DVD drive. I could do it, and I’m inept!
But…whoa… The motherboard had better be identical to your old one, right? What if the hard drive wakes up and finds itself attached to a different model board? Will it be smart enough to adapt, or will it get all boggled? How flexible are registry files and the like?
And expect issues: With the old hard drive in the new PC, you’ll probably have the wrong drivers for everything from networking, to the controller you’re hooking that hard drive to, to the basic system chipset. Windows may–or may not–be able to fix everything up for you with updates, or may not even be able to boot correctly. You may have strange issues that linger after the update.
Or just buy whichever computer you like and remove the hard drive that’s provided.
This is the real problem- you can’t just drop an instance of Windows 7 into a totally new computer and expect it to work.
What you can do is to get the new PC, and then add your current one as an additional drive. You may have to fiddle with it a bit to set it as a non-boot partition or something like that, but it’s doable.
He’d have the executables and other files for his old version of Photoshop - but without the registry entries created during the installation, I don’t think it would work.
Nope, can’t do this.
You can buy a copy of Windows 7 to put on any new machine you buy. You can probably buy a used copy of Photoshop CS2 on eBay to install on this new machine, or if you have your original disk you’re set.
But no, regardless of whether you can buy a machine with no hard drive, you can’t just transplant an old hard drive into a new computer and thus have your old computer in a new box. That’s not how it works.
Yeah no, you’re trading one hassle for another MUCH bigger hassle.
With a new machine you want a new OS. You don’t want to try and use your old OS (unless you’re using something modern - 7 or higher?). and even then you want to re-install a fresh version fo the OS you do have. Doing otherwise is a recipe for instability and it’'ll be a nightmare to figure out if something isn’t working or crashing because of your OS transplant or some hardware fault.
Just get your new hard drive with it’s new OS (or a clean one that you can put a fresh copy of whatever OS you have) and install your copy of photoshop fresh.
Actually I already did that once with this hard drive.
I had a PC. I had a roommates PC. (roommate not in picture anymore) Anyway fist my video card on my PC went bad. I had little money at the time so I bought a cheap new card an carried on but then the USB hubs were going bad. So I looked at friends PC and swapped out the HDs and it worked. It took a long time to boot the first time. (not that long really) but it worked.
Trouble his has a build in video card and it isn’t very good. There isn’t enough room in the case or power from the power supply to get a ‘good’ card. That’s why I want a new one.
I could get a new mother board and power supply. (?)
I do want more and better USB hubs than what I have now as well.
If you don’t have the installation files and/or serial number for your copy of Windows 7, head to tigerdirect.com right now and pick it up. Microsoft stopped all consumer deliveries of Windows 7 on 31 October 2014. Whatever is left in stores and online is all that is available now. Once sellers run out of stock, that’s it.
And while you are at tigerdirect, just buy a new PC from them.
Ok well then…hard drives are a fairly cheap component of a PC so just buy one and remove the hard drive, install your old hard drive on it, then put the old new drive in the second drive bay and format it for a nice big secondary empty drive.
And good luck with all that.
This is basically what I’ve been doing since the mid-90’s. The new computer’s CPU and motherboard won’t be the same architecture as the old one – otherwise there’s not much need to get a newer model. But since you’re getting a better/faster/spiffier system the software on the old hard drive won’t be looking for certain features of the motherboard (sound bites, etc) in the right places.
Better to…
[ul]
[li]get a newer computer with a modern operating system [/li][li]install as much of your old software as possible onto the new computer(to save money)[/li]
[li]get modern versions of old software (that you still find useful) that won’t work on the new operating system (provided the new versions can read the old data)[/li]
[li]install the old hard drive onto the new computer so the old data is available[/li][li]turn the old hard drive into a logical drive (i.e. It won’t be used to boot up the computer when it starts so the primary partition should not be an active partition. You might want to get a geek to help you with this.).[/li]
[/ul]
After doing that several times, I just started putting my data on one drive and the Operating System and software on another drive. Now I use a third drive for as much miscellaneous software as possible. [Some programs just insist on being installed on the same drive as the Operating System – usually called the C drive.] This also tends to be a safeguard; if some malware attacks my C-drive, I don’t lose all of my software and data, just the OS and a few other programs. And then I follow the bullets above.
—G!
Then you know it can be done. Even when you do it blindly, most of the time it works out okay. As Kinthalis notes, however, there is always a risk that there will be a glitch. If you are lucky it will be obvious and your system just will not boot. If you are unlucky, it will a subtle problem that causes odd behaviors at random intervals.
The proper way to do it is to use Microsoft sysprep for the changeover.
Actually, with Windows 7, with a little preparation - simply copying the motherboard driver CD to a folder on the HDD - you pretty much can. You’ll have to ring up MS to re-activate it, but they’re usually pretty good with that.
Unless the old HDD is a PATA drive, of course, in which case you should clone it to a new SATA drive. Indeed, I’d clone the drive anyway.
But I wonder if the issue is really not buying an OS and not actually not buying a HDD?
Firstly, there are licencing issues: the OS may only be licensed on the old PC. Secondly it’s possible to buy a barebones PC without an OS licence.
And if you’re buying a new PC, do get yourself a SSD. Unless you’re the type who leaves their PC on 24/7 then a SSD will make a significant positive difference to your PC usage.
I leave my PC on 24/7 and I still wouldn’t ever build a PC without an SSD as it’s primary/OS drive (I have a big spindle drive for data).
It makes a huge difference in wake times, boot times, load times for applications/programs and the responsiveness of the OS as well as many apps.
You can’t beat that random read performance and that low latency.
Just make sure you put your page file on another drive; that constant read/write action will mess up your SSD faster than anything else.
SSD? Solid State Drive?
Does Windows 7 really not have a repair installation function? That took care of this issue every time I had to shift a drive running XP.
Zebra- unless the case is so small that it won’t fit, or the motherboard doesn’t have enough ports, (or, I suppose, you’re running really proprietary equipment from the early 80’s) you can put in more than one hard drive.
I’ve put new motherboards into old computers several times, so it can be done. However, buying a new computer, so that you don’t get a disk with the motherboard driver may not work. When you buy a motherboard, you get a driver, and then you can use an HD with old files and an OS already installed, and after the first boot, run the motherboard driver, and everything will work (or should).
I don’t know what the OP means by “not wanting to upgrade.” A new motherboard with new RAM and a new processor, but the old HD and old powersource, old videocard, if it happens to be better than the onboard video-- is that a new computer, or an upgrade?
Some computer stores offer a service to people who buy new computers, by which they copy your old HD files onto your new HD. If you explain that you have Win7, and you want that on your new HD, they can probably install it for you. The other option is to install the old HD as a slave, and then look for the motherboard drivers online and download them to the old HD (I wouldn’t try to copy them from the new HD, because they will be the Win8 version), then swap the new and old, so the new is the slave, and the old is the master-- programs like Photoshop may only run correctly from the master HD. At that point, the OP can leave things as they are, of reformat the new HD to wipe the OS, and it will be a back-up storage drive.