Adding Second Hard Drive that has existing data

[jeronimo1]

My son's computer was shipped via airline and after unpacking it a noise could be heard coming from the inside which turned out to be a dislodged heat sink/fan from the processor. We attempted to start the computer however it would not get past the RAM capacity in startup.  We decided to take the hard drive out of his computer and place it in mine, if this is possible? If this is possible could you please tell me the procedure to follow. Thanks  

[blue_caddy]

what os are you trying to put the used drive into? if its xp  and old drive was98 or newer it will work just make sure you put the jumpers right as your used drive set to the slave and your main drive as main  not as cable select ive done it and it works or you can just boot from that used drive if it had the os on it somtimesether way your files youll be able to get

[Cary_GRant]

Also note, that if your son's computer was radically different from yours AND he had windows XP loaded on it, then you may actually encounter a problem with the operating system asking you to install the ms key for it since windows XP has a built-in safeguard that detects changes in hardware to ward off piracy of Microsoft operating systems.