Transferring Hard Drive to new Computer

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
1

Hi.  I am not much of a tekkie, so I need some help.  I have a WD 640GB hard drive that I removed from my broken Gateway computer (it was a desktop running Vista 64 bit).  I bought a new computer (HP desktop running Windows 7).  I want to put the WD drive in my new HP computer and have it be a slave or secondary drive (ie, I don’t want to boot from it).  The drive is WD6400AAKS-22A7B2, SATA/16MB cache, WD Caviar Blue.

I’ve tried to read the tech docs, but I’m still unclear.  I am correct that I would not need a jumper to accomplish my objective?  I just connect the power and data cables and the computer will continue to boot from the original disc (C:) and the WD drive I install will be a different drive letter?

Finally, since the WD drive still has Vista installed, if I want to, how could I boot from this drive as an option?

Thanks so much, I really appreciate it.

2

if you want to boot from it, I’d purchase an external case that allows you to boot from it.  otherwise, make sure that you connect the drive to any secondary sata port to use it as a backup drive.  I’d probably still wipe it, though.

3

Check the link below, it will show you how to boot from both drives.

http://www.techspot.com/guides/143-dual-boot-windows7/