Moving a hard drive from one computer to another

[David]

SATA hard drive from Dell Dell Inspiron 530 to a Dell 531
The 530 by the looks of things is beyond reasonable repair but trying to keep the data from the 530 if that makes sense from what I see the 531 will take another drive Im wondering if its within my capabilities to do this job

The last point you cant answer unless you know me 

[MisterW]

Looks pretty straightforward according to this http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/inspd531/en/OM/parts.htm#wp1429712
You've got spare sata ports and a suitable spare drive bay by the look of it.

[Glenn]

David, you should be able to fit the drive on to a spare SATA port, boot the PC then access the data.

[David]

I thought as much and also that it was well within my capabities thanks will find time later... 

As usual fear of the unknown and all that

[David]

Looks pretty straightforward according to this http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/inspd531/en/OM/parts.htm#wp1429712
You've got spare sata ports and a suitable spare drive bay by the look of it.

Thanks Ian   

[David]

Just found time to tackle this job and the drive is out of the old machine I see that the power connector is mentioned am I assuming correctly that the power connector lead for the old machine connects upt to the board marked 05 to power this additional drive ?

One other point can I increase the RAM by using the old sticks into the working machine ?

Good job Im not a bomb disposal man isnt it 

[MisterW]

SATA drives have 2 cables a DATA and a POWER. You need the DATA cable from the old machine with the drive, this should connect to one of the free SATA connections ( probably SATA1 )  on the motherboard. There should be a spare SATA power connector in the power supply loom on the new machine, connect that to the drive.

From what I can see the memory is the same between the 530 and 531 so it should be ok.

[David]

  Im in your debt Ian 

No power cable there from the loom wondering if I can piggy back from one drive to the other ?

[David]

Well thats the drive in ,the memory in and an extra Dvd drive inas well as half a ton of dust ............................. guess its time to switch it on 

[pctech]

Well if it doesn't go bang you are ok.

[psp83]

Well thats the drive in ,the memory in and an extra Dvd drive inas well as half a ton of dust ............................. guess its time to switch it on 

You might get some permission problems accessing the old data, if so, just reset the permissions on the files. Plenty on Google about how to do that.

[David]

Well its really much faster than before so thats a plus, cant seem to see the additional drive and the additional player wont seem to kick in or be recognised but am getting there its tons better than before and so quite    I will get there and make one good machine out of the two

[Glenn]

Check to see what drive letters, if any are assigned to the new drive, you may need to add it to Windows. http://www.7tutorials.com/how-manage-your-disks-using-disk-management-utility

[David]

  Glenn will check that out .....Cant believe I didnt break it

[Technical Ben]

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/inspd531/en/OM/appendix.htm#wp1057478

That page might help. It shows the system details on startup. Might need to look at "Integrated Peripherals" under "drives/Sata" I think. If it shows 2 serial numbers, then the 2 drives are plugged in and working. If it shows just 1, then something might not be connected. Oh, and remember that any DVD drives also show on that list, so it might be 4 drives show or whatever, but I'm sure you can count better than me! 

[David]

Oh thanks Ben I was struggling with the windows I got the information but could not make any sense of it 
Typical me