The only thing that I can imagine might be a problem is if your old drive is 
an IDE drive and your new computer primarily supports SATA drives.  Usually 
there is still one IDE connection on the motherboard, which can support two 
drives.  Assuming at least one connector on the ribbon is still open and you 
can reach both your hard drive and whatever else might be connected to the 
ribbon, you're good.  Check the jumpers on both IDE drives so they make 
sense (both cable select or set one slave and the other master).  (You'll 
also need a free power connector.)

If the drive being transferred is a SATA drive, there is even less to worry 
about.  Since its not a bootable drive, you can simply hook it up.

I'd still go ahead and make a minor change in the BIOS to configure the 
drive originally in the the 8000 as the the primary hard drive to boot from, 
ahead of the drive from the 400.

John Sproule

-----------Original Message Below-----------

Date:    Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:01:31 -0500
From:    Donald DeWitt <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Hard Drive Switch Over

I am planning on removing the =93slave=94 drive from my Dell XPS 400 comput=
er to
a Dell XPS 8000. The 400 is running Windows XP, and the 8000 is running
Windows 7. The drive only contains files and doses not have any programs on
it. Is there anything I should do in the Bios to get the new computer to
recognize it? Or do you see any other problems I should be aware of?

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