Vista - Install new sys drive

First I am working from an old xp laptop not my main desktop sys. My sys.
crashed and I want to save my files from the old drive. I purchased a new
Maxtor SATA 500GB drive to load Vista (using a friends copy) but when loading
it ask for a driver. As we all know most systems and drives do not come with
drivers any more. So what I need is location and name of driver to download.

So here is what I have:
HP Pavilion Media Center TV PC - m7747c
E6400 Intel Core 2
2GB mem
320GB (old drive)
NVIDIA GeForce 7500 LE graphics card

If you should need any more info please let me know.

Lastly I do not want to do a restore until I get my files from the old drive
- that is why I am trying to install the new drive. After I get my files I
plan to do the restore and see if it will get me back to normal.

Help Please
Ed

nemo wrote:
1. Pull the old drive (the target drive) and put it in a USB external
enclosure.

2. Attach the above to your XP computer and copy your data to the working XP
install.

3. Contact HP tech support and order the restore disks if you didn't make
them. This is far the best solution with HP computers. The cost is very
low; I just ordered some for clients and they were $22.62/set and that was
with expedited shipping.

4. Install your new hard drive in your desktop machine and use the restore
disks you got from HP.

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
FAQ - http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ

Thanks Malke, that was my last option. I don't have a writable drive on my
laptop so I would have to round one up. As far as the restore disk I was
thinking about doing that but do you know if that would restore to a new hard
drive? Also can you pull just the SATA hard drive driver from the resotre
disk?

Thanks
Ed

"nemo" wrote:

nemo wrote:
1. If you don't want to buy a new writable optical drive for the laptop,
take your hard drive in its USB enclosure over to a friend's house and use
their burner.

2. The restore disks will work on a bare metal drive. That's one of the
reasons to have them.

3. I don't believe you could just pull the drivers from the restore disks,
although something like isobuster might work. The restore disks are images.
You could look on HP's website for the drive controller drivers. However,
my experience with HP is that you really need to use their restore disks
and with some models installing from a retail copy of Vista will give you
problems.

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
FAQ - http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ

Malke, I think what I am going to do is the last line you sent me. I had been
thinking it would most likley be the best. I am going to try to order the
restore disk and build from that. The reason I had not already done it was
did not know if it would build the new disk with nothing on it.

Thanks
nemo

"Malke" wrote:

nemo wrote:
Good choice. Thanks for taking the time to let me know.

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
FAQ - http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ