newguy5

so i am building a new computer and going to use one ide cable and put the cd drive as the primary and the hd as the secondary. well once i get windows up and running i have files on another hd that i want to transfer to the new hd. can i simply unplug the cd drive and plug the ide into the other hd, boot up the computer as usual, and transfer my data, then turn the computer off and switch it back to the cd drive?

Garethman!!`

Yes, that would work.

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CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 / AMD Athlon 64 X2 TK-53 1.70GHz
RAM : 8GB DDR2 PC6400 / 2GB DDR2 PC5300
HDD : 750GB SATA Seagate Barracuda/ Hitachi 120GB 5400RPM
GPU : Radeon HD2900XT 512MB / Radeon Xpress 1150 128MB
OS : Windows Vista Ultimate x64 / Windows Vista Basic
PSU : Hiper 730W ATX / 80W Dell Laptop Power Brick

sniperchang

I don't have experience with multiple drives, but based on what I know, if your transferring form an HD that was used in a different system, make sure that BIOS boots up from the HD that is already in the system. Since both HDs have windows installed, if that's the case, booting from the old HD, windows will try to load up drivers and stuff for hardware that doesn't exist anymore(which was for the other system).

I'm not sure about other motherboards, but on ASUS if you hold F8 on boot-up, you can select which device to boot-up from (So in this case, you could select the newer HD).

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CPU: Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Skt939 Toledo @ 2.4Ghz
Motherboard: Asus A8V-E SE
VidCard(s): BFG 9800GTX 512MB PCI-E; eVGA 6200 PCI (Secondary)
Mem: Corsair 2x1 gb TWINX C2 PT XMS
HardDrive: Western Digital 8m Cache 250GB 7200RPM
Monitor(s): 2x CRT 17" Phillips 107B5/107T6 and LCD 22"wide Samsung 226BW (Triple Display)

Multiple Display 101