Transfering data between different windows os's

[SithMaster]

I have a hd that has a copy of windows xp that came with the computer i bought and now that it doesnt work i was wondering if i would be able to get my info off of it.

i was going to use another hd as a dummy hard drive-install a retail windows xp and use it to copy my old data off my original hard drive.

would this work?

[ChadTower]

If you did it right it would work just fine.  Put the original drive in as a slave in any XP box and it will be assigned a drive letter so you can access it.

Of course, you say it doesn't work, which could mean any number of things, many of them leading to the drive being unrecoverable.

[SithMaster]

i havent tried this yet so i was only speculating.

the mobo in the original pc died and im going to buy a copy winxp today and take a shot at it.

but you say it is just copying (copy and paste maybe) so it should work.

but i meant that the hard drive works but the computer doesnt.  i was worried that since it was a bundled windows xp it wouldnt let me copy the files.

curious whats the minimum hd size for winxp?  i have only 2 spare hds a 1 gb and a 2gb otherwise ill have to use the hd from my arcade cab and well i dont want to do that.

[USSEnterprise]

I think XP takea about 1.5GB, but not sure. If the hard drive you were trying to recover files from is password protected under windows by any chance, you may have a hard time accessing files in the documents and settings directory. I have run into this problem in the past.

[ChadTower]

The drive to which you want to copy the content needs to be at least as big as a new XP install + the size of the stuff you want to copy + about 10% extra for scratch space.

So mostly it depends on how much stuff you want to pull off of that old drive.

[SithMaster]

my account had a password but is it only documents and settings?

how did you get around the password issue?

well i wanted to pull about 60gb worth of info -less actually becuase i only need the game save files not the entire games- but i was going to use a external hd connected through usb.  otherwise i could connect a third hd with a ide cable

[ChadTower]

my account had a password but is it only documents and settings?

how did you get around the password issue?

A drive password issue is different than an OS login.  So you're probably good.

well i wanted to pull about 60gb worth of info -less actually becuase i only need the game save files not the entire games- but i was going to use a external hd connected through usb.  otherwise i could connect a third hd with a ide cable

If you want to pull 60g, you're going to need 65-70g of space on the drive to which you are installing XP and moving those files.

[SithMaster]

if thats the case then i hope i can find a bigger hd otherwise i can try and move everything off my 160gb (maybe 70gb on it) and put it on a 250gb and then use the 160gb as the master.

[ChadTower]

As the SithMaster.

[SithMaster]

lol.

[USSEnterprise]

my account had a password but is it only documents and settings?

how did you get around the password issue?

A drive password issue is different than an OS login.  So you're probably good.

The problem I've had has been with the OS login. I have a password to login to Windows. If I try to access my files running the drive as a slave on another computer, I run into a wall.

[Jess--]

I have never run into any problems jumping between OS's I have windows XP installed on a sata drive and windows 2000 server installed on an ide drive, the two installations are unaware of each other (I pulled the 2000 drive when I installed xp)

XP has full access to the 2000 drive (including docs and settings) the same also works in reverse.

both systems are set up with passwords.

The only thing I can think that could cause a problem accessing what the computer thinks is another users files would be if you do not have admin rights (if it still objects with admin rights then take ownership of the offending files..... not sure if you can do this under xp)

[NightGod]

Since the drive works and you have a functioning computer, you migth as well try dropping in the hard drive into the working PC and firing it up-if the only problem with the old machine was other hardware failures, it just might work. Worst case it would fail and then you could try booting off the XP install disk and running a Repair and, if that failed, you could just install XP fresh on the drive in a new directory.

Or just drop the old drive into the machine you planning to use the 60GB worth of data on and copy it directly...why all this effort of pulling it to an external USB hard drive so you can transfer it to another machine?