MB dead, need to get images off HD?

A friend of mine has an older Emachine running windows xp and it won't boot. I'm thinking its a MB problem and have talked him into getting a new computer. I'm wondering if I can take his old HD with windows on it and put it as a secondary HD on his new computer long enough to get his pictures off of it (he did no backing up) or if this would confuse the computer when its booting up with 2 OS's on it? Its an older IDE drive.
Thanks
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http://www.pbase.com/ronkeele

I wouldn't think it's a problem.

If so, the only thing I see that could happen is that you get a question from which disk you'd want to boot: choose the new one.
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Sony A100
18-200 mm
17-50 mm / f2.8

That will probably work (just make sure the boot order in this BIOS is pointing to the new drive versus the old one so that it's not trying to boot into the old copy of Windows on the old drive).

You could also boot into a Live Linux CD with NTFS Write support and browse/copy the images between the two drives. SimplyMEPIS 6.5.02 is a great choice for that (and it's free).

http://www.mepis.org

What do you mean by the old PC won't boot? Do you see anything at all when you power it up? If you're seeing the post screens from the PC OK and just getting some errors or a lockup trying to boot Windows, it's probably something fixable (i.e., software versus hardware issue).

I'd probably try to troubleshoot it a bit more to figure out where the problem is (and it may even be something wrong with the drive).

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JimC
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http://www.pbase.com/jcockfield

Buy a cheap USB enclosure so you can put the old drive in the enclosure and copy the files to the new computer via USB. That way you don't have to worry about the new computer getting confused about which drive to boot from with the old PATA (IDE) drive in the system along with the new (most likely) SATA drive.

NewEgg has hundreds of enclosures starting at under $20 shipped, and it's nice to have one around for just such a purpose.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2000090092+1053807123&name=3.5%22

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• Eric, http://www.InvisibleRobot.com/

When the power switch is pushed nothing happens, no fans turn, no beeps, nada. I tried another power supply and its still the same.. nada. I tried to look for a clear cmos jumper and there is not one, its an intel mb, so I'm assuming there is something wrong with mb or processor.
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http://www.pbase.com/ronkeele

Thanks, thats a good idea.
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http://www.pbase.com/ronkeele

Did you try to jump start the power supply while it was connected to the computer? For a regular ATX power supply (if it is a Dell, it could use a proprietary pin-out), I believe that is done by shorting pins 14 and 15 together, though Google will help provide the exact answer. The power supply needs a load to start, so leave it connected to the motherboard.

Also, sometimes an improperly seated card, RAM, or something else loose can cause a computer not to power up, so make sure everything else is seated properly. You might also try disconnecting/removing everything that isn't necessary, to see if one of those items could be the culprit.

Though it is entirely possible that the motherboard is hosed.
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• Eric, http://www.InvisibleRobot.com/

Thanks, I'l give it a try.

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http://www.pbase.com/ronkeele

If you dont need to use the DVD player at the same time the old HD is on the new computer, just change the jumpers and hook it up to the DVD player cables. You dont even need to put it in the computer, just prop it up level on something, on the outside.
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