Resolved Copying Win 10 and Office 2007 files from a removed HD.

I have been given a PC that is running Win 10 . I was asked to remove that OS and to to install Win 7 on it instead as he was familiar with that. The PC has a 60 GB SSD and a 500GB HD. Someone had unplugged the SSD and installed Win 10 on the HD, which was also where Office 2007 files were stored. I believe the SSD used to have Win 10 on it and that it got in a tangle, hence the bypassing of it.
My Plan was to reformat the SSD and install Win 7 on it, to create a partition on the HD and move all but the data files there. I want to temporarily copy the data files to an external HD and put them on the internal HD when I have it working properly.
Problem! I cannot access these files, my PC runs Win 7 with Libre Office. How can I access thee files? Is it possible?

 

Hi Ishmael, You may have problems If the W7 was used during an upgrade to W10. (Time limits regarding going back to original OS). 60GB SSD is not very big in the storage world these days. You should be able to use software like AOMEI to clone the files you want to an external drive. Is the W7 you wish to install provided with a Product Key?

 

Thanks. The Win 7 that I have is not related to the Win 10 on that PC and I have the Win 7 key. I put the SSD in a dock and read it's contents but cannot identify what version of Windows is on it. I had think it was Win 10 and it had got corrupted, so no going back to Win 7. I will reformat it to clean it out.
My problem is that I cannot access the MS Word etc. files for copying from the HD which I have in a dock. I suppose i could put the HD back in the PC, (it has functioning Win 10 on it) run MS Word etc. and save their data files onto an external drive and transfer them later to the internal HD when I have that partitioned etc. This will be a bit clumsy, but it should work. Will Libre Office read those files OK?.
Surely 60 GB is quite adequate for an OS only drive with Win 7 that's not going to be used for gaming. Yes/No?.

 

Solved! Put the HD in an enclosure and connected it to a Win 10 PC, no problem accessing the files - not logical but it worked.

Thanks to all.