Ok, I've built my new rig, but what i want to know is..

Is it possible to fit my old HDD (which hasn't been formatted) into the new box, the snag being that it has XP loaded on.

Will it cause some wierd shit where both OS's try and load (thus causing the universe to implode) and if not, is it possible to get the odd bits that i want off of it and then format it so it's a nice clean HDD for future backups.

Well done for following all that bollox.

Not a huge mega tekkie, but wont BIOS ask you from which HD do boot from?

No idea, this is all new ground for me, I'm not even sure if it's possible to format it clean.

It is possible, as long as you have some OS installed on the primary disk. It wont load anything from the secondary disk because in the registry there are no orders to load from IE. E:\stupid program\moron.exe

It will load only from the primary disk.

If you want to wipe it clean, insert the hdd into your case. On MY COMPUTER right click and choose manage, there you should see all your connected drives and partitions, you can format your disks there.

thats great, cheers, I'll try it tomorrow and let ya know

EDIT: Actually 2 other things: 1)does it matter that it's a sata HDD, like my current HDD

And

2)The old HDD has an Anti-virus installed, and a firewall, will these try and load and cause conflicts with the ones on my vista HDD?

Cheers

They shouldn't. As long as you set the other HDD to slave (look at the jumpers on the back of the HDD) nothing should really load from it unless you tell it to. I could be wrong though

Well the thing about the HDDs is that all the "old" power connectors could be in use by your video card and other power requiring components.

What happened to me was that i had to go and get one of those old power cable dividers so i could put in my old HDD, the new one uses the slim cable.

By old i mean the big white square looking 4 pin power cable. New one is the black slim one that looks more like a mobilephone battery charger, although do not connect one to it, unless you want to explode your mobile.

Heh, its ok my PSU is modular

yea, as long as the drive isn't the primary drive the computer won't boot from it. After that you don't need to worry about it. You'll be able to access the physical files on the drive from inside Windows but nothing with automatically load unless you configure Windows to do it manually. So have no fear.

As for it being PATA vs SATA, as long as you have the right motherboard connectors you'll be fine.

yeah, fitted it, all worked ok, only annoyance was having to set admin rights to the folders so I could get the stuff I needed

After that formatted fine and as soon as i get a copy of acronis i can start imaging to the spare HDD