Does your HP A720N have CD or DVD writer?
If it does, you can use disk imaging software to dump an old hard disk image
to CD-Rs or DVD-Rs.
Practise on your current hard disk, then put an old disk in place of a new
one and boot of imaging software boot media (floppy or CD). Create image on
CD/DVDs. Put a new disk back. Boot normal and use disk imaging software to
extract relevant data from CD/DVD stored image.
It is so much simpler if you have more than one PC and a network.

"Terry Cox" wrote in message
om...
Help !!!!!!!!!!!

My three year old Gateway desktop suffered a major failure and I had
to replace it with a new HP a720n. I 'm pretty sure the data on the
hard drive on the old machine is still good and I really really need
to recover that data.

My first thought was to simply install the old HD in the new machine
but theres apparently no way to install a second HD in the new a720n.

Anyone have any ideas as to how I can get the data off the old HD
?????

Thanks