We’ve upgraded our office’s server but have run into trouble with the new computer – we’d like to swap hard disks and then wipe the new drive (in the old comp) and give it to one of our affiliates. Both hard drives are the same size (3.5″). I’m aware of the potential driver issues, but if the drivers are copied to the old drive prior to the swap, would that take care of the issues? Are there other issues I should be aware of? Things to look out for during the swap?
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Possible To Switch Hard Disk Drives In Two Servers Running Win Server 2003?
Posted on March 14, 2011.
Your question is not very clear. Do you want to give away an empty drive to someone and you want to switch a hard drive from one machine to another? Use Darik’s Boot And Nuke (DBAN) to securely erase the hard drive before giving it away, as otherwise the other can recover your personal files, which you do not want. As for switching the hard drive, do you want to reinstall the operating system or do you mean to switch the hard drive and keep the current operating system installed? In the first case, there is no issue. Simply reinstall the operating system and drivers on the other machine once you have switched the hard drive. If you want to switch the hard drive and keep running the current operating system, it depends on the hardware of the other machine if this will work. If too many drivers are different, it will not work. It would not be advised either and reinstalling would be a better choice. Uninstall as many drivers as possible before switching for the biggest chance of success.
Assuming that the drives are completely standalone and not part of a RAID set, then either server should be able to see it if it has the proper interface (SCSI, SAS, SATA).
Next concern is the format of the file system (NTFS, FAT, funky 3rd party stuff). Can the new OS read the file system the old OS was using? In most cases the answer is yes. Since you say both servers are win2k3 there should be no problem.
Drivers should not come into play just to access the drive. However if the drive is encrypted or compressed or using something other than the native file system then you may need the drivers installed on the new server. Having them on the drive won’t help if you can’t read the drive in the first place.
Assuming you have a spare interface you can just put the old drive in the new server and see if it sees it or not. Unless you format it or do something destructive, it will either work or it won’t.
Lastly I’d be concerned with keeping the old drive in the new server. Drives are one of the first components to fail. I don’t know what the problem was with the new drive but given a choice I’d rather have the new drive then the old one.
edit: Oh yeah. watch out for local NTFS permissions. Stuff like Administrator has the same SID but if you made your own local(not domain) group/accts they will have a different SID on the new server and won’t have permission even with the same name. There are a couple of programs out there that will copy local accounts to the new server (assuming the old server still boots).
The biggest problem is that a lot of applications won’t work, unless you reinstall them. The way that Windows works, when you install a piece of software, certain files go to the directory (folder) for the application, but some system-related files (often DLLs) are put in the WINDOWS directory. In addition, the computer’s system registry is updated with all sorts of configuration information.
If you try and run the application without the right files, they won’t run. If you try and run the programs without the Registry entries, they won’t operate, and if they do, it won’t be dependably.
What you are suggesting is risky and will likely end up costing you many hours of recovery time.