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My old PC is dead, but the internal hard drive is still working and there are important files on it.

The question is:

Can I move the internal hard drive from the old PC to the new PC without any other tools (because I want to use it)?

Giacomo1968
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ziad ayoub
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  • Does this answer your question? [How do I move a windows installation hdd to a new computer?](https://superuser.com/questions/938264/how-do-i-move-a-windows-installation-hdd-to-a-new-computer) – MC10 Apr 13 '20 at 14:44
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    Not enough information. Do you want to BOOT from this old hard drive or simply ACCESS it from a new computer? – Señor CMasMas Apr 13 '20 at 15:37

2 Answers2

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You can access your important files easily as long as you don't wont to boot from your old drive and as long as you have a matching interface. You won't be able to connect an old PATA or SCSI drive without additional hardware to a modern computer.

r2d3
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  • This isn't strictly true, He doesn't mention the OS but Windows 8 and Windows 10 have made great progress at making the bootloader much much smarter and the HAL isn't usually tied to one set of hardware. If you move the hard drive, it will reconfigure, reboot and load in most scenarios. Not tried AMD <> Intel, but, done quite a few Intel to Intel migrations without any problems... and, Linux just seems to always work no matter what. – William Hilsum Apr 13 '20 at 19:23
  • I just say "extracting files is easy on a new computer", nothing more, as he says "there are important files on it" instead of "I have valuable software on this drive where I won't get a new key when being run on different hardware". I have no clue about the difficulty of moving the operating sytem to new hardware. – r2d3 Apr 14 '20 at 21:10
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In most cases, the answer will be yes.

If you just want to access files and the drive was old and you already have a new computer - I would recommend you get the hard drive out of your old machine and buy a USB to SATA dock (between £5-£15) and simply use that to get the files you require off.

There are fringe cases where it won't work, but, providing you are going to the same operating system, the chances are minimal. The main issues you may see are if you use bitlocker or another encryption (And you don't have the decryption key), or, if you used Dynamic disks and your new system doesn't support it.

William Hilsum
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  • but i said i will use it in new pc – ziad ayoub Apr 15 '20 at 15:18
  • @ziadayoub it is useful to copy your documents to an already existing new drive instead of putting it in your new PC's case, assuming the old drive in the old PC is many years old already. Also a 2nd internal disk would consume power all the time. If you wanted to take over your OS installation, please edit your question (including info if hardware is dead or OS!). – Furty May 07 '20 at 06:41