Copying or cloning an old IDE drive to IDE drive

FrankSebem

Hello MSE GUYS

My mate has an old gaming rig that he was happy with until recently when the IDE HDD started making a noise.He has convinced himself he needs to change the drive so please can someone suggest best method of doing this because mine and his current computers are both modern core i5 computers.He has a spare IDE drive of identical capacity so just wants to clone the whole data including the old windows operating system from one IDE drive to the spare. 

Cheers and stay safe every person. 

debitcardmayhem

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

FrankSebem

Wow! That was quick reply. Thank you. As I am a total newbie person at this would you be able to tell me what components I will need to do this because obviously the IDE connector won’t work with our new computers. 

FrankSebem

Apologies upfront if I sound a bit dumb but please let me explain. Im just trying to help a pal out. 

The current IDE Hard drive (1) is in his gaming rig. 

He doesn’t want to copy any other software onto that Hard drive because he said it’s ready to die so what he wants to do is unplug it from the gaming rig and take it out.Now he has this Hard drive in one hand.In the other hand is the replacement IDE Hard drive.How can he clone the data from that old Hard drive to the replacement IDE hard drive using only his new Computer which has USB slots of course but no IDE connectors on the board. 

Cheers and stay safe. 

debitcardmayhem

Why can't he do it in his old pc?

Cisco001

Get on of these?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2047675.m570.l1313&_nkw=IDE+SATA+DUAL+HARD+DRIVE+HDD+DOCKING+STATION+USB+HUB+++CARD+READER+UK&_sacat=0

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SATA-PATA-IDE-Drive-to-USB-2-0-Converter-Cable-for-HDD-with-External-Power/184579777231?hash=item2af9cfe2cf:g:ghkAAOSw82hf1y-0

FrankSebem

debitcardmayhem said:

Why can't he do it in his old pc?

Because he is worried that if he tries to install anything else on that drive it will crash n burn. He just wants to use it once more time. 

Heedtheadvice

In very general terms ad follows. You may need more detail when you come to do it but as an overview:

Buy one of those that Cisco linked to (I would get the second one just on cost for a one off but the other will be better if you want to backup other things like your own drive which you should be doing!).

Download Macrium Reflect (MR)  as advised above onto one of the newer machines. Connect old drive with new interface and use MR  copy  contents to a new folder on PC.  Remove old duff ide drive.

Connect on the replacement ide drive to new interface and use MR to copy saved image onto new drive.

If all has gone well reinstall new ide in gaming pc.

Thise are the basic simple steps...but if the old drive is failing it might be too late to do a copy without error messages. In which case...if there has not been a backup made previously!!!! (Note comment I made near start of thread!!) then it might be difficult without a lot of work or even impossible. Many people think only of what they should have done too late but give it a go. Only a tenner or more to loose.

Jenni_D

Are there no SATA ports in the PC? (If he already has the replacement IDE drive then this is a moot question - but I get the feeling you're saying IDE when you may actually be meaning HDD ... Hard Disk Drive. [It's been a long time since IDE drives were the norm]. If you are meaning HDD, and the drive actually has a SATA connection, then you/he could think about replacing the HDD with an SSD - Solid State Drive, but this may be more expensive depending on capacity).