Using an old hard disk as an external drive on a new laptop.

[Tzadqiel]

I was considering replacing the video cards on my 6 year desktop, but I figure its a losing battle since I'm sure as soon as I replace them something else will break. I have decided to get a new gaming laptop and was wondering if it would be possible to pull my hard drive from my desktop and run in it as an external hard drive on the new laptop? My drive has Vista Ultimate 32 bit on it and obviously the laptop will likely have 8.1 64 bit. I figure this way I wont lose 6 years worth of music, games and other things. Thoughts?

 

[Kaliz]

save your important files to your new laptop harddisk by hooking it upo to your new computer with a SATA connector and copy them

 

[USAFRet]

You can use it. Buy an external enclosure and plug it in.
However....your applications and games will need to be reinstalled.
Steam games can probably be moved or redesignated as to location, but all your applications will not work on the old drive.

 

[Tzadqiel]

Bummer. Guess I'll get that video card and keep the old beast running as long as possible. Thought maybe if i tinkered with the bios I could just either boot into the vista drive or the 8 drive. Basically dual boot but from separate drives. Suppose that makes sense though, as all the old programs and applications would have all the old drivers they were installed with fighting with all the new stuff. Appreciate the help though.