I am trying to change out a hard drive from one computer (computer x) into another computer (computer y). I want to take out the hard drive for computer y, having computer x's hard drive in there and running as it did in the computer x, which is now broken. How do I install it? Can I just unplug Y's and then plug in X's and let that be it?

Help! Thanks.

Hi andrewjennings, and welcome to the forums.

I'm going to assume we're talking about an IDE hard drive (still the most common by far) and not SATA or SCSI.

If the hard drive has the OS on it, and you're going to want to run this OS on the new computer, you're likely to run into the problem discussed here (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=34965).

If you're going to plug it into the new computer as an extra hard drive, the you'll just unplug the power molex and IDE cable and plug it into the new computer on an extra power molex and IDE cable there.

You'll prolly also have to change a jumper setting from master to slave. There are two connectors on each of the two IDE cables - the one on the end is master, the one in the middle is slave. Most hard drives have a jumper configuration diagram printed on them.

Post back with any other questions, or just to let us know it succeeded.

Okay, if I just wanted to install one blank hard drive in a computer how would i do that? I understand plugging it into the proper places, but how would I load the OS?

1)Make sure everything is connected.
2)Power On Computer with a boot disk in the floppy drive (use any one, but a Win 98 boot disk will do just fine)
3)Insert your Operating System CD
4)Restart Computer (CTRL-ALT-DEL)
5)Follow prompts to install your OS
6)Install your drivers from your driver CD (if you have one)

This is just one method, although I'm sure others have probably some better ones. Good luck.

If you want to install win2000 or XP, just boot from the CD, and follow the prompts.

If 9x or ME, you will need a boot floppy like one of these (http://freepctech.com/pc/002/files010.shtml). Either 98 or ME will do fine.

After making the floppy, boot from it, choose with CD-ROM support,

take note of the letter assigned to your CD drive, enter x:, substitute x for the letter assigned to you CD drive,

with the install CD in the drive, enter setup.exe, follow the prompts.

Actually, you can boot to and install from 98SE and ME. Not sure about 98FE.

Huh, you learn something new every day. :) I can't remember, can you fdisk and format from the 98 and ME CD? On the same note, you can install XP and 2000 with a boot floppy, if you have a old computer that can't boot from CD.

I'm not sure if you can fdisk and format from the 98 or me cd. My guess is no.

You can begin the installation process for XP & 2000 from bootable floppies called setup disks.

When you boot to a Win98 CD (first or second edition) you are first presented with options to boot from the CD or the HD. If you choose the CD you are then given the three following options (very similar to booting from a Win98 boot diskette):
Start Windows 98 Setup from CD-ROM.
Start computer with CD-ROM support.
Start computer without CD-ROM support.

I have never tried the first option but the next two options allow you to use fdisk from an emulated floppy drive with an a:\ prompt. In order to format you have to reboot and then choose with CD-ROM support and navigate to the Win9X folder on the CD. You can then run format from within that folder.

It's odd perhaps that format.com is not in the a:\ drive or that the autoexec.bat file has no path to the CD's setup folder to enable you to run format from the a:\ prompt; perhaps and probably because there's no way of setup knowing in advance what drive letter the CD will be assigned.

I can only presume that WinME is similar.

I have now found http://www.windowsreinstall.com/win98/install98cd/indexfullpage.htm which has screenshots of the process to follow if the first option to setup from the CDROM is chosen - but it obviously expects to find a formatted C:\ drive on which to run scandisk and do the installation.

It appears from http://www.vmware.com/support/reference/common/guest_win98.html that fdisk appears to run automatically on a blank hard drive - so presumably format must run on the next reboot.

http://www.duxcw.com/digest/Howto/buildcom/athlon/ath_7.htm indicates that you can format from the A:\ prompt though all I can say is that it wouldn't do this for me and that this page (http://bochs.sourceforge.net/doc/docbook/user/guest-win98.html) agrees.