Computer Question

[goodnigh]

Long story short, my mouse quit working.

Was doing an install of "recommended" driver

updates and the mouse quit working. Says

"click" here to finish install. Problem being

can't "click". This computer being five years

old I decided to buy a new one. The question,

can I remove the SATA drive from the old computer

and install in the new one? Already grabbed the

8GB RAM memory module. They are both bootable

drives. In past times you would need to change a

switch or jumper.

mike

 

[jbojo]

Are you trying to make the new system dual boot or using the SATA drive as extra storage? If the answer is extra storage and there is no data that you want off the drive just reformat it and plug it into any available SATA port and it will work.

When your mouse stopped did you plug it into another port if it was a USB mouse? The system would have scanned the new device and re-enabled it or you could have done a couple of CNTRL-ALT-DEL to do a reboot and the updates would have installed and reset the mouse.

 

[tony-muscle]

Long story short, my mouse quit working.

Was doing an install of "recommended" driver

updates and the mouse quit working. Says

"click" here to finish install. Problem being

can't "click". This computer being five years

old I decided to buy a new one. The question,

can I remove the SATA drive from the old computer

and install in the new one? Already grabbed the

8GB RAM memory module. They are both bootable

drives. In past times you would need to change a

switch or jumper.

mike

You should be able to "click" with the keyboard. Try pressing the "tab" key until the button you want clicked is highlighted, at that time press "Enter" and that should be equivalent to clicking.

You should be able to install the drive from the old computer into the new computer, not to boot the computer, but to read the data. I don't think the drive would work as a bootable drive unless it is a similarly configured computer.

 

[Mister 4x4]

OK, when you say "new computer," do you mean you got a whole new computer, with it's own hard drive and operating system already installed? I ask because I typically buy pieces parts and put my own stuff together - I've never actually owned a completely put-together store-bought turn-key machine (except for a few laptops, of course).

The Master/Slave (or PRI/SEC) jumpers are holdovers from the days of EIDE/IDE drives. SATA drives are typically controlled by the SATA ports through the motherboard's BIOS.

If your new computer is indeed a complete machine, put the old drive into the new computer in one of the numerically higher SATA ports, get into the BIOS and ensure the Boot Order does not include that SATA port. That's it.

You could use the old drive to boot the machine, if you have Windows 7 or newer - the newer OSs are fairly adaptive to new equipment... but I don't recommend booting from the 'old' drive, either.

Also, don't blow out any of the old OS files on the 'old' drive until you're satisfied you've recovered all of your data. They're just taking up space since your machine is running off the new 'C' drive.

FWIW: I keep a wired set of USB devices (keyboard and mouse) just for the specific purpose of if my wireless junk quits, whether because of dead batteries or whatever. Usually, when a BT or RF wireless device quits, it's because of loss of signal or power - restoring the signal and/or power usually fixes the issue, but in the meantime plugging a wired device in usually gets me through the outage.

The keyboard solution Tony mentioned usually works as well.

Hope this helps.

 

[basstrix]

I've done this in the past and found that in order to gain access I needed to "take ownership" of the folders and subfolders of the data files I wanted to recover. I think it depends on which folders and how security was set up on the old machine...but something to keep in mind.

 

[Mister 4x4]

Yeah, that's a Windows thing. With all Windows OSs, your accounts are created with individual SIDs (Security IDs), and normally, files with 'personal' security settings are not easy to 'take control/ownership of' (through older OSs, like XP and older). Windows 7 and newer, it's easier (if you have 'admin rights') to 'take ownership' of all files on a non-OS hard drive volume, even if the SIDs don't match - but you have to be an 'admin' on the OS running your machine, though.

Whenever I roll over to a new version of an OS, reload the OS, tech-refresh my computers, or whatever, I make a new folder on a non-OS hard drive and copy all of the files in my user account folder before logging off and doing whatever. That way, I have a clean copy of all my stuff in a non-personalized [security] directory on a neutral drive. When I log in with the new SID the first time, it's just a matter of replacing the empty space in the new user account folders with the contents from the copies I made (Favorites, Contacts, etc.).

It's crazy the things we do and how it becomes so 'meh' over time and repetition. I remember the first time I had to reload Windows 95 - I was terrified I was going to lose all my e-mails, Favorites, desktop wallpapers, etc.... then a friend told me to back everything up, quit being a baby, and just do it - I'm a computer maintenance technician, after all! Wow - that's all I needed, and that was 20 years ago. Ain't skeered a' nuthin' anymo'. ::thumb::

 

[goodnigh]

Are you trying to make the new system dual boot or using the SATA drive as extra storage? If the answer is extra storage and there is no data that you want off the drive just reformat it and plug it into any available SATA port and it will work.

When your mouse stopped did you plug it into another port if it was a USB mouse? The system would have scanned the new device and re-enabled it or you could have done a couple of CNTRL-ALT-DEL to do a reboot and the updates would have installed and reset the mouse.

The "old" SATA drive has files I want. Seems easier than using the

backup drive, just pluck the files.

The keyboard is USB and I did try a couple different ports for the

mouse. It is a driver issue.

mike

 

[goodnigh]

You should be able to "click" with the keyboard. Try pressing the "tab" key until the button you want clicked is highlighted, at that time press "Enter" and that should be equivalent to clicking.

You should be able to install the drive from the old computer into the new computer, not to boot the computer, but to read the data. I don't think the drive would work as a bootable drive unless it is a similarly configured computer.

The system on both drives is Win7. Just pulled the "old" drive.

It is a Seagate Barracuda 1000GB. There are no switches or

jumpers like the old days. So how will the computer know which

drive to boot off?

mike

 

[goodnigh]

OK, when you say "new computer," do you mean you got a whole new computer, with it's own hard drive and operating system already installed? I ask because I typically buy pieces parts and put my own stuff together - I've never actually owned a completely put-together store-bought turn-key machine (except for a few laptops, of course).

The Master/Slave (or PRI/SEC) jumpers are holdovers from the days of EIDE/IDE drives. SATA drives are typically controlled by the SATA ports through the motherboard's BIOS.

If your new computer is indeed a complete machine, put the old drive into the new computer in one of the numerically higher SATA ports, get into the BIOS and ensure the Boot Order does not include that SATA port. That's it.

You could use the old drive to boot the machine, if you have Windows 7 or newer - the newer OSs are fairly adaptive to new equipment... but I don't recommend booting from the 'old' drive, either.

Also, don't blow out any of the old OS files on the 'old' drive until you're satisfied you've recovered all of your data. They're just taking up space since your machine is running off the new 'C' drive.

FWIW: I keep a wired set of USB devices (keyboard and mouse) just for the specific purpose of if my wireless junk quits, whether because of dead batteries or whatever. Usually, when a BT or RF wireless device quits, it's because of loss of signal or power - restoring the signal and/or power usually fixes the issue, but in the meantime plugging a wired device in usually gets me through the outage.

The keyboard solution Tony mentioned usually works as well.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, got it.

Just make sure the BIOS is setup. I think get a one second "hit F2"

message on powerup. Great advice.

mike

 

[goodnigh]

OK, when you say "new computer," do you mean you got a whole new computer, with it's own hard drive and operating system already installed? I ask because I typically buy pieces parts and put my own stuff together - I've never actually owned a completely put-together store-bought turn-key machine (except for a few laptops, of course).

The Master/Slave (or PRI/SEC) jumpers are holdovers from the days of EIDE/IDE drives. SATA drives are typically controlled by the SATA ports through the motherboard's BIOS.

If your new computer is indeed a complete machine, put the old drive into the new computer in one of the numerically higher SATA ports, get into the BIOS and ensure the Boot Order does not include that SATA port. That's it.

You could use the old drive to boot the machine, if you have Windows 7 or newer - the newer OSs are fairly adaptive to new equipment... but I don't recommend booting from the 'old' drive, either.

Also, don't blow out any of the old OS files on the 'old' drive until you're satisfied you've recovered all of your data. They're just taking up space since your machine is running off the new 'C' drive.

FWIW: I keep a wired set of USB devices (keyboard and mouse) just for the specific purpose of if my wireless junk quits, whether because of dead batteries or whatever. Usually, when a BT or RF wireless device quits, it's because of loss of signal or power - restoring the signal and/or power usually fixes the issue, but in the meantime plugging a wired device in usually gets me through the outage.

The keyboard solution Tony mentioned usually works as well.

Hope this helps.

My first encounter with a computer was a Sperry Univac. After that

I moved to a Heathkit system with a 8" floppy drive that held a

staggering 98 KB. Once bought a Sun2 120 so I could learn UNIX.

Or is it Unix or unix and what does that mean? I am not unfamiliar

with computers but the modern tech takes all the fun out of it.

So just plug in older SATA and all should work fine. Keep you posted.

mike

 

[goodnigh]

I've done this in the past and found that in order to gain access I needed to "take ownership" of the folders and subfolders of the data files I wanted to recover. I think it depends on which folders and how security was set up on the old machine...but something to keep in mind.

Yes, security. Good Answer. Old and new system use Norton 360

and Malwarebytes. If things don't work I will blame it on them.

mike

 

[Mister 4x4]

My first computer experience was with a Franklin Ace 1000 (Apple II+ clone) in high school BASIC programming class. Took some of that knowledge and had some fun with my friend's dad's Timex Sinclair 1000, and later Atari 600. Joined the Air Force in 1986 and went to Tech School to learn mainframe computer operations (Sperry 1100/60 and Honeywell DPS 88/82), and played with some of my buddies' machines (Amiga 500 & Atari 1040 ST).

I bought my own Amiga 500 in 1993, left the Air Force in 1996, became a computer maintenance technician/System Administrator/Webmaster for our Air Force systems, and bought my first Windows 95-based PC - and have kept current with the Microsoft OSs since, learning a bit of Solaris and Red Hat (which helps with my Apple junk) along the way... (I'm also a CISSP, with MCSA and A+).

So yeah - I've been breakin' perfectly good computers for the better part of 30 years now. Never thought I'd ever hear myself admit that... especially, since I was supposed to become an architect at the time.

 

[midlife]

Damn youngsters. I remember when the abacus was first introduced...before that, we only had fingers and toes for digital computing.

 

[basstrix]

My first computer was a hand me down from my dad....it was a 386 that I think he put together from a kit. It had a 5-1/4" and later, a 3.5" floppy drive. When I got it, it ran on DOS and I upgraded it to windows 3.1 (I think it was). I had a program called mathcad and it would run a day and a half to take the partial derivative of all the variables defining a 4 bar linkage (typical of independent front suspension). Later, I built a souped up 486...lol..(I laugh because a smart phone is thousands of times more powerful than a 486)...it needed more ram and that was back when one of the foundries burned down so there was a severe memory shortage...I think it was a 500Kb stick of ram was selling for just under $500....I saved my money to get it and it made the machine run faster.... That was back when you had to set jumpers, know how to set up and manager IRQ's..and a few other details that escape me now.

Edit: Oh, and there there were the dial up modems...14,400 baud rate and then the super fast 56k modems came along...wooooo LOL

 

[Mister 4x4]

I am SO glad mobo technology has progressed to the point we don't need to manually finagle IRQs, Physical Memory Addresses, and deal with ISA and IDE - PCI-E and SATA is SO much better.

For instance, my first CD-R Burner was a Smart & Friendly single-speed, with it's own SCSI Adaptec ISA card. I remember having to juggle the IRQs and Physical Addresses just to get the card to run in the stack, and still burned about a half-spool of coasters because while IDE and SCSI bus speeds were around 33MHz (133MBps), while the ISA bus only ran 6MHz (1-2MBps). So, there was a known bottleneck for throughput which would constantly cause Buffer Underrun errors, thus turning out coasters. (Think of a 500hp big-block with an in-tank Holley racing electric fuel pump... and an almost closed-off kink in the hard line between them).

Nobody thinks that's a big deal until we recall that the average price of adapter cards was $80, the CD-R new was $299 (a gift from a friend), and the 100-disk spools of CD-Rs was $140 at the time. Those were some pretty expensive coasters. Not to mention it usually took about 45 minutes (single-speed) to burn a coaster, as well.

Good times! :whistling:

 

[tony-muscle]

My first one was the great Apple II Plus with 48KB of RAM. I still remember the day my dad bought the 16KB card to expand to a whooping 64KB. That card was huge, probably 16" long.

In those days I was about 12 y/o. I taught myself Basic and I had a passion for engines. One of the first programs I wrote that included graphics showed a piston/cylinder that moved to show the four cycles. The resolution back them was very poor. The low resolution I used in my programs was 48x40 pixels. We have really come up a long way in resolution and computer power.

 

[goodnigh]

Damn youngsters. I remember when the abacus was first introduced...before that, we only had fingers and toes for digital computing.

Then came the slide rule, I own four.

And don't forget the pencil and paper.

mike

 

[midlife]

Damn youngsters. I remember when the abacus was first introduced...before that, we only had fingers and toes for digital computing.

Then came the slide rule, I own four.

And don't forget the pencil and paper.

mike

Yes, but do you have the circular slide rule, and do you still use it? I do!

 

[goodnigh]

Damn youngsters. I remember when the abacus was first introduced...before that, we only had fingers and toes for digital computing.

Then came the slide rule, I own four.

And don't forget the pencil and paper.

mike

Yes, but do you have the circular slide rule, and do you still use it? I do!

Lucky you! I occasionally search eBay for one. A lot of "circular"

slide rules but not the log log type I am looking for. Also own an

abacus.

mike