I have a PC that is completely messed up. Windows is having no success starting up, even in safe mode. Doing a scandisk, I noticed it found some bad sectors that it couldn't repair so I decided to buy a new HDD a replace it. My question is can I setup the new HDD in my PC, load Windows on it and then connect the old HDD as a secondary drive to copy over the files I want (my mp3s, docs, pictures, etc)? I was thinking I could just load Windows on the new HDD, daisy-chain the old HDD to it, run fdisk and make it a secondary drive, copy the files over in windows and then disconnect the old HDD after I'm through. Is this possible or is there a better way to do it? I would have just burned the files I wanted to copy over, but like I said, I cannot get Windows to start properly. Thanks for any advice.

Yes -- get the new drive going, add the old one as a second drive, copy the files to the new drive. Done it many times.

Or, you could use Ghost to copy that whole HDD as just an Image, then use Ghost Explorer to open up that image at will and extract what you need.

is running fdisk necessary or can I just get the new HDD running with the old one attached and then have Windows recognize it automatically?

wouldn't using Ghost copy over all the messed up parts from my old HDD? I think besides having bad sectors, there's all kind of corrupted files and such. I kind of inherited this PC from a guy who basically downloaded anything and everything.

Ghost will error out and stop when it finds the errors on old HD.

Do NOT run fdisk... On the back of your old HD you will see a small "jumper"...change that to "slave"...then plug it in on the same cable as your new HD... If you old HD doesn't have too many problems, it should start up and you will see it probably as Drive D:...just copy everything you need to your new HD and you are home free... Ghost is a great product but I don;t think it is what you need for what you want to accomplish... Good Luck Steve