Thread: Transferring files from detached hard drive

My system includes two hard drives and two DVD drives, one a recorder. I have a 'detached' hard drive with many valuable files on it. I would like to transfer the files from the separate hard drive onto one of the two hard drives in my PC.

Could one of you wizards advise me as to the best way of achieving this?

I have not done the obvious thing, (temporarily replacing one of the hard drives in the PC with the 'spare' drive) because I'm fearful of causing confusion with drive mapping etc.

I solved this problem (see my post above) by attaching the separate hard drive as a 'slave' to the HDD 0 drive with Windows XP Home installed on the primary partition. To do this I had to temporarily unplug the IDE cable and power connector from my second DVD drive, and put them into the separate hard drive.

Much to my surprise on bootup Win XP reorganised the drive letters so there was no confusion, and the drive letter for the Win XP installation stayed the same as before. I did not know it could do this. On a previous occasion, trying to do this with Windows 98SE, I got into a hopeless muddle. Not so this time.

So, with no further delay I was able to start copying whole directories of movies, images, MP3s and documents onto the new hard disk.

After doing this I disconnected the 'separate' hard drive, reconnected the second DVD drive, and everything was OK.

With thanks to anyone who was intending to respond to this problem.

Now you have a 'spare' hard drive then maybe a 'caddy' or enclosure might be a good investment? Something like this; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Allcam-Enclo.../dp/B000RAFFEY
Handy for backup.

Thank you for your helpful comment, Fabler.

I did not know that these 'caddies' or enclosures even existed.

What a splendid idea, and so inexpensive too, at only £12.98.

Instead of my old hard drive gathering dust in my PC parts box, it can be a useful backup tool.

Another winning suggestion. How did I ever manage before I found this web site?

Thanks again, Fabler.