I had a pc hard drive "crash" on me and a local guy has put in a new hard drive and a fresh install of Windows 7 ( I know its old). I have since had a data recovery company extract the data from my old hard drive. The question is if I copy everything from the old hard drive onto a separate partition on the new hard drive can I boot up and run from that partition so in effect I have the old pc back and just bypass the fresh windows install. If this is the case how do I get it to boot from the partition where I have copied the recovered data to?

Keith 2010 3.6TDV8 Stornoway Grey/ Black interior - gone
2005 4.4V8 (M62) Bonatti Grey/ Parchment interior - gone
1998 4.6HSE Blue/ Cream interior (can't remember exact colours) - gone
1977 White - gone (should have kept)

What is the data on - a USB drive ?

I would expect it's jut the data anyway, so you just need to copy whatever you want to the new drive.

Why do you think you want to boot up the old drive ?

Alastair

Yes it is on a usb drive, I assumed it would be like a copy of the old hard drive and if I could put it in a partition on the new hard drive I would be able to use it just like the old pc without having to adjust settings etc in the new windows install, that's why I was asking about how to select which partition the computer will boot from.

Keith 2010 3.6TDV8 Stornoway Grey/ Black interior - gone
2005 4.4V8 (M62) Bonatti Grey/ Parchment interior - gone
1998 4.6HSE Blue/ Cream interior (can't remember exact colours) - gone
1977 White - gone (should have kept)

I guess it really depends what they could recover - did they give you any kind of report ?

I'd be tempted to just start again with Windows, but copy across any data that you need - pictures, documents etc.

It's not straightforward but if you think it's easier to restore a full copy, then you will either need a separate disk to copy it all onto, or split the disk you have into partitions then copy everything onto the new partition - but I think windows is more complicated and needs some files in specific locations on the disc.

Probably easiest to ask whoever did the recovery for you

I don't think you want two bootable partitions on the same drive. Yes, it CAN be done but it's easy to mess that up. Also, you said you had all the files recovered from the old drive. Recovery is not always 100% in those cases. If it's a *.doc(x) file and you need to do a little reformatting - no big deal. I'd it's the OS and you're missing a few bytes, that could be a big problem. Keep the personal files, definitely, but I'd recommend a fresh install for all recovered programmes.

Thanks for the replies, yes it is only the data files I have got back so I will copy them into the new install.

Keith 2010 3.6TDV8 Stornoway Grey/ Black interior - gone
2005 4.4V8 (M62) Bonatti Grey/ Parchment interior - gone
1998 4.6HSE Blue/ Cream interior (can't remember exact colours) - gone
1977 White - gone (should have kept)