Re: Swapping data only HD from Win98SE pc to XP pc



surefire1 wrote:

Hi all,
after searching the forums unsuccessfully for an answer I decided to
register and post my question.

Here's the scenario..I've got a Dell Optiplex GX100 pc running
Win98SE. It has 2 harddrives: the master for running the OS and other
apps, and the 2nd is data storage only (photos, mp3s, spreadsheets,
etc).

I'm finally upgrading to a newer Dell with Win XP. Can I transfer that
2nd hd from the 98SE pc to the XP pc as a 2nd (data only) hd and have
the stored data still be readable.

I know that Win 98SE and Win XP are incompatible (built on different
architecture - fat32 vs NT..or whatever;-)) but I read somewhere that
data should still be readable, after all, a jpg is still a jpg, etc,
etc.

I'd burn the data to cds first but lately my pc has turned into a
coaster making machine.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks


Hi,

Since your old machine is/was WIn98SE, both the 1st and 2nd drives are
going to have FAT32 partitions (and NOT NTFS) on them. WinXP can access
both FAT32 and NTFS partitions, so you should be fine moving the 2nd
drive from your old machine to the new XP machine.

Alternatively, assuming that you have USB on the old machine, you could
go get an external USB2 enclosure and put the 2nd drive into the
enclosure, then you can access the drive from both the Win98SE and XP
machines (but not at the same time), by connecting the enclosure to
whichever machine.

If you expect/desire to be able to continue to access the 2nd (data)
drive from both machines, do not convert it to NTFS, as the conversion
is one-way (from FAT32 to NTFS) only, and then you won't be able to
access that drive on the old computer, even if you moved it back
physically.

Jim
.

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