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Hi!

I've been considering trashing my old Windows XP in a long time, while keeping the harddisk. And recently something that shouldn't happen, just happened to my old laptop. What I probably need is a 3.5" and a 2.5" harddisk case, I can use for the two different harddisks placed in my laptop and desktop. But since I never tried having a dead computer before, I got a few questions related to all the programs on both harddisks as well as Windows Vista & XP themselves.

First of all, do you know to detach the harddisk? I do not yet have the hard disk cases, but a short description could help me at least understand what I am trying to do before buying anything related.

Second of all, can I still use all my purchased & one-time licensed applications that happens to be on these harddisks? And will I be able to boot Windows XP or Windows Vista, just by connecting the harddisks to my laptop through USB/eSata?

Third of all, got any brands for harddisk cases you can recommend? I've found a lot of Raidsonic cases, but I need something that looks good and doesn't cost over 150$.

I hope I can get the data transfered over to my working laptop soon so I'll be able to continue working on my tracks. Thanks in advance for your help!

Sorry, not much time to answer for now...
About detaching the HD, I think it's better that you search for info on internet directly, it's not complicated, but explaining could take time (roughly, turn off PC, unplug power and IDE cables, remove the screws).
When buying your hard-drive case, be carefull that there is IDE and SATA standard, yours is probably IDE.

I think it will be quite hard to boot on this HD directly later, but maybe possible.
First, the option "Boot from USB device" has to be available in the BIOS of your computer.
Even if that works, it's likely that your XP installation will not appreciate to be booted directly on another system. But it is possible, my current hardrive was is my previous PC, and I have still not reinstalled XP from then. I got some issues though at the beginning, and I found a way to fix that by creating a new "Hardware Profile", or something similar.

Jig wrote:When buying your hard-drive case, be carefull that there is IDE and SATA standard, yours is probably IDE.

Oi, thanks for saying that! Found out that my old WinXP was using an IDE harddisk before ordering, so hopefully I'll figure out how to mount them.

Looking forward to try eSata for my WinVista harddisk too. Whether I can or cannot use boot WinVista itself from the harddisk does not matter as much hopefully. Unless none of the progs I have installed there works on Win7 of course. Thanks for the advices!