Complete hard drive transfer?

[FarShot]

Hey guys, just upgraded my computer to new and sexy specs.  I'm too lazy to type them up at the moment, but I do have a question.

With this new computer, I got a new main hard drive.  It's crispy clean and not filled to the brim with BC mods and the like.   Problem is, I have none of my video games on this hard drive.  Is there a way to get around reinstalling them on the main drive, say, adapt the registry to refer to the old hard drive as if it's always been there or something (I'm not that tech savvy, so correct me if that's the wrong terminology or methodology)?

[moed]

Not that I know of but if you set up your old drive as say an external, then you could just recreate the BC shortcut icons on to your desktop (from the BC .exe's on the old drive) and they will automatically point to the original BC installs on your old drive and give you the ability to play BC from that drive without filling up your new drive.

Problem with that technique is that if you get an external HD enclosure that is only USB 2.0, your load times will probably be somewhat slow. Now, if you happen to have a motherboard that supports USB 3.0 and buy a HD enclosure that is USB 3.0 compatable, then your going to have excellent performance.

Another method you can try is to make an image of your old drive and transfer it to your new drive. Then, clean up as much of what I call "superfluous junk"; files/folders/programs that you know you no longer need and in essence, clean up/optimize your HD. Then defrag. I'm guessing your new HD is larger/faster etc. than your old drive so bottom line, your going to get better performance by default.

Hope this helps   

[Nebula]

you don't need to make it an external... just put it in the new case and plug it in. (most cases can hold up to 4 HDs)

[FarShot]

You're kinda missing the point there, Nebula.  I already have simply plugged it in.  The issue is that if you go onto the old hard drive and, say, double click on the launcher for Modern Warfare 2, it won't start.  Similar issue if you just copy-pasted the game from someone else's computer.  It just doesn't work like that.  I'm trying to see if there is a way around that.

[JimmyB76]

youre better off just reinstalling your games onto your new hd...  from there, im sure you can copy/paste any folders/files of your games on your old hd to your new hd...

[ACES_HIGH]

yeah, you don't have the registry files on the new harddrive, so it won't work with the games on the old one.

[Nebula]

you don't need to have reg files to play BC just the exe file and the cd... how else do multiple installs of it work.

[ACES_HIGH]

yeah, but other games, like MW2 do need those files

[Nebula]

I think you're stuck with reinstalling em