An older computer in my office recently expired. Is there anyway to retrieve data from the hard drive? I understand I can remove the hard drive and install it in my new computer as a second hard drive (would love some detailed instructions or directions to a link to help me do this). I'd like to avoid that if possible. Can you run the serial port cables to make the transfers if the old system will not boot up? The old system is Windows 98 and the new computer is Windows XP.

That's actually a lot easier than you might think. Just get that old drive out of the dead system first.

Shut the new system down - power off.

Then, make sure that the jumper (little plast thingy) is set as the SLAVE. On most hard drives, evne older ones, there's a diagramm somewhere that shows how the jumper needs to be, for master, slave, etc. If you get it wrong, it's usually nobiggie and you just try another jumper setting.

Okay, next, we open up your case and locate the new hard drive. That one should already be set up as a master. If the cable on that drive has a free connector, all you have to do, is to plug that free connector into the old drive - and also a power connector. The red stripe (if there is one) should be on the right side, if you're looking at the rear of the old drive.

Power back up, and voila, you should be able to see everything from that old drive, in My Computer - unless the drive is bad or something.

Copy, save, do whatever - and when you're finished, RIGHT CLICK on the old drive, followed by selecting the FORMAT option. When the format is done, you'll have a bunch of new, empty space abailable for other stuff. Cool, eh?

Hey Intel, AMD rulez!

I would recommend not reformatting the old
drive until you are positive that the data
has been transfered properly and useable.

You will have to reinstall applicatons before
you can use them in the new system. Some
applications may not run under XP.

The old drive can be still be put into
another computer and used.

That's why I said to reformat it . . .
Obviously even someone with limited computer knowledge should be able to tell whether or not the files have ben copied over correctly - simply by checking the location where the files have been copied to, a process that only takes seconds with My Computer.

Unless he's using old DOS stuff, and as long as he's using the FAT32 file system, I don't think that he'll have any trouble with XP because my XP PRO system runs more old stuff better than even Win98 and especially WinME did. Granted, any programs that are copied from one drive to another in full, will more than likely still have to be reinstalled with the actual installation disks before they may work. That applies at least to any software that's not stand-alone, meaning files are SHARED with the Windows system and also registry.

Once all of the wanted files have been properly retrieved, there's absolutely no reason NOT to format the disk again, for several reasons.

1. To check integrity
2. To look for/find bad sectors
3. To use the drive in another system
(where he would more than likely NOT need or want the stuff that just got copied)

Hey Intel, AMD rulez!