Old hard drive new system

OK Andy,

The first step is to see if we can get the old drive recognised by the BIOS.

Set it up as a slave (it should have a jumper switch?) and attach it to the second slot on the ribbon cable (the one half way along). If your primary drive does not have a jumper (some don't these days) then you will probably be best off setting the old drive to CS (cable select).

Boot into "setup" (BIOS) and on the first page you should see your basic system details which will include the drives that BIOS has detected.

Does it report that the slave drive is there? If it doesn't there should be an option down the bottom to "autodetect drives".......... please run that.

If that doesn't work, there should be an option for manual settings........you could try adding it manually?..............you will need to tell it the same information as you see for the master drive, but that apply to the old drive (capacity cylinders etc.) You should be able to find them on the label on the drive.

Incidentally, what was the message you got when you tried to install the old drive as "master"?

EDIT: In answer to your question, the "firmware" should not matter. Your BIOS should recognise your hardware before your operating system loads.

Whilst firmware can be an issue with running or managing hardware from within your operating system, it is not used by your BIOS.