When I got a new computer, I didn’t know what to do with my old computer until a friend of mine suggested using the old hard drive in the new computer. I was able to use the old hard drive to backup files and have more hard drive space in my new computer. It was easy enough that even I could do it. This is a simple step-by-step procedure on how I connected my old hard drive that already had Windows installed on it and connected it to my new computer.
Take out the old hard drive
According to the owner’s manual, open the tower and disconnect the power and the IDE ribbon cable from the hard drive and remove.
Determine the model of the hard drive and refer to your brand’s website for jumper settings. Most hard drives in the market usually has four different jumper settings.
With the old hard drive in your hand, change the jumper setting to slave. There may be a diagram on the hard drive to show you which the slave setting is.
Open the tower to your new computer and locate the hard drive.
Connect the hard drives
Connect the old drive to the IDE ribbon cable onto the second connector next to the new hard drive. You may have to wiggle the old hard drive inside the tower to make it fit.
Connect the power supply cable to each hard drive.
Plug the computer in and boot up.
Check the connections
Once your computer boots up, open up My Computer icon to look for the second hard drive entry. You should see three different drives within the operating system, if your computer has a CD/DVD drive.
I did not reformat my secondary hard drive to be a data only storage drive. I left it as it was so I could access the files on that drive and add new files as I needed. There’s no reason to waste that old hard drive when you buy a new computer. Use it to your advantage for backing up your files and save yourself the time of transferring your old files to your new computer.
Sources:
http://mwolk.com/blog/jumper-setting/
http://www.kids-online.net/learn/click/details/idecable.html
http://www.mikeshardware.com/howtos/howto_connect_ide_hd.html