Computer Power Supply Interchangability

I had a two year old HP computer that worked fine until one day about a year ago it didn't. It didn't turn on, it didn't do anything. I come to determine the power supply died, taking the control board for the hard drive with it. I recently received a new replacement control board with a cloned firmware, so I should have access to the data on the drive. I probably should clone/ghost that drive prior to firing up the computer again.

Anyway, I had a spare power supply from a computer I build years ago, a Coolmax 375w. The old LiteOn power supply was a 300w max. Most of the connectors interchange, I think. I believe the older power supply had a main plug with a seperated extra four-pin that the new board doesn't need, and the LiteOn had direct SATA power plugs as opposed to older 4-pin power for drives.

Is there any danger in using the older power supply on the new motherboard?

No. If the plugs fit, you're good to go.

Worst case scenario, if you overload the PSU it will just shut down.

Do back up that hard drive that had the board replaced though.

Dr. Hess wrote: No. If the plugs fit, you're good to go.

This, but bear in mind that I have never owned a system where the power supply didn't crap out before any other component did. One shot sparks out the back when it died. FUN! Most computers are shipped with the absolute cheapest crappy power supplies available, and they last about a year. I have made a habit of upgrading to something reputable when the OEM unit dies. Antec makes a decent supply.

Only other thing is system watts, but you're good there.

How can I back that up?

I've got a 1TB USB drive that could probably handle most of what is on the 600gb drive, but I couldn't run Windows from the USB, could I?

I know you can't run XP or earlier from USB, don't know if newer OSes would work. XP or earlier is very unlikely to boot on a different PC than it was installed on unless you manually muck about with system files and registry values anyway, and the copy protection would likely deauthorize your license too.

Frankly if someone wants to get an XP or earlier Windows install running from a hard drive, I turn it into a VM and crack the copy protection.

This box was Windows 7.

OK good news, Windows 7 will generally boot on different hardware and is more permissive of hardware changes in terms of licensing. Set your BIOS to boot from USB and give it a try.

Edit: You'll have to either image the drive across, or do a proper backup preserving permissions (using robocopy for example) and then repair the bootloader using an install disc.

Bad news. Old drive from desktop is not reading, wanting to format. Chkdsk says file system is in RAW. I had quite a few gbs of pictures on that drive that I'd like to recover. I'm going to to try testdisk.

If the drive is showing unformatted after a board swap, the board probably wasn't an exact match and you probably won't be able to recover anything, even with TestDisk.

Awww really? Bummer. Lots of pictures and music on that drive.

Might be a stupid windows quirk. Try booting to Ubuntu LiveCD and see if the drive is readable.

a surge might've gone thru the voltage rail on the old supply and damaged the logic board on the hard drive.

if the drive still functions AT ALL, you're probably going to be able to recover things as long as you do NOTHING that writes on that drive...

but consider that drive damaged goods. get another one immediately once you get your pics.

"PC Inspector" has worked for me before.

You can also use one of the Hirens boot CD's tools included.