Hi All,

My old pc chips m/board gave up so I decided to swap the existing 80gb ide hard drive in to an old pc (that kept losing its hard drive in bios).
However I switch on and I get to the black and white screen saying Windows (XP pro sp2) failed to open properly.
If I select to open anyway it just freezes.
If I select last known good configuration then it just turns itself off and returns to same screen.
If I select safe mode it runs off a list of files and then freezes.
Help!

I really would like to keep the data on the hard drive.
I have read that I might be able to 'repair' the Windows installation.
Is this okay or will I lose the data. I'm not bothered if I lose the applications.
Any help and/or advice will, as always, be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

Hi Gary and welcome to D-A-L.

You cannot simply take a HD from one computer and install it in another in the boot position and expect it run Windows. For one, it is generally illegal! Unless you bought your license for Windows separately from a retail source, you cannot transfer it to another computer. That is software piracy.

Technically, you can't do it either because the installation on the drive is configured to use the old computer's hardware drivers for all the hardware devices on the old motherboard, the old drives, the old graphics, etc.

If your concern if to recover the old data, the best, and legal solution, is to install that drive as a slave, or secondary drive in the new computer, then you can access your old files from within My Computer.

Your old programs installed on the old drive will not work because they have not been installed in the new computer - that is, the Registry on the new computer does not know about the old programs.

(that kept losing its hard drive in bios)

Note the classic reason drives disappear from the BIOS is due to a weak $2 battery, available at most any battery counter.

Originally Posted by Digerati

Hi Gary and welcome to D-A-L.

You cannot simply take a HD from one computer and install it in another in the boot position and expect it run Windows. For one, it is generally illegal! Unless you bought your license for Windows separately from a retail source, you cannot transfer it to another computer. That is software piracy.

Even though I bought it 'oem'?
I actually have another licence kindly issued to me by Microsoft due to a crazy problem with validation of my version that suddenly became validated anyway!

Originally Posted by Digerati

If your concern if to recover the old data, the best, and legal solution, is to install that drive as a slave, or secondary drive in the new computer, then you can access your old files from within My Computer.

Ah, but I may have been really, really silly and cleared the cmos.

Originally Posted by Digerati

Note the classic reason drives disappear from the BIOS is due to a weak $2 battery, available at most any battery counter.

Wow, I've done something right!

Thanks Digerati, seems I may have been a bit rash and tried to run before I could walk.
I know a bit and have self built trouble free pc's however I obviously know very little!
Hopefully I can save the situation by your suggestion of refitting the other, faulty(?!), hard drive as master and mine as slave. I hope so else I will be even less popular with my family!

Cheers.

Even though I bought it 'oem'?

Especially because it is OEM - only retail versions are transferable to a different machine. OEM - original equipment manufacturer means just that - it is a license for the "original equipment".

I can save the situation by your suggestion of refitting the other, faulty(?!), hard drive as master and mine as slave.

Whoa! I didn't say that!

In fact, I said you CANNOT do that!

You have to install the bad drive as a secondary or slave drive, then you can copy files from it to your good boot drive.

The exception is if your secondary IDE connector is not used, then the bad drive can be installed as a Master on the secondary IDE channel. In this case, the drive is set to Master (or CS), but because it is on the secondary IDE channel, it is still a secondary drive.

Originally Posted by Digerati

Especially because it is OEM - only retail versions are transferable to a different machine. OEM - original equipment manufacturer means just that - it is a license for the "original equipment".

But my hard drive is the original! And I'm trying to prevent a disaster here!

Originally Posted by Digerati

You have to install the bad drive as a secondary or slave drive, then you can copy files from it to your good boot drive.

That's what I said. Sorry Digerati, I think I may have confused you.
My hard drive from the pc with the faulty m/board is fine. The other hard drive (with a validated XP pro) from the pc I am going to be using was intermittently dropping from the bios hence my thinking it was faulty (you suggested a new cmos battery which I had fitted anyway during the re-assembly but don't have the 'faulty' hard drive in the pc at this moment in time).
Your first post read to me that you suggested to make MY hard drive the slave and the 'faulty' hard drive as master.

Originally Posted by Digerati

The exception is if your secondary IDE connector is not used, then the bad drive can be installed as a Master on the secondary IDE channel. In this case, the drive is set to Master (or CS), but because it is on the secondary IDE channel, it is still a secondary drive.

Okay, I have both a cd-rw and dvd-rw and now, it appears, two hard drives. All ide.
What configuration do you recommend to get it working so that I can save the important data and reformat? Thanks for your patience and, I hope, understanding.

Cheers.

But my hard drive is the original! And I'm trying to prevent a disaster here!

Hard drives are simply components withing the computer - they are not what makes a computer the "original" or not. The "original", in this case, is the whole computer your copy of Windows was licensed to. That means if you bought a Dell Model XYZ123, serial number 456, your Windows disk can be used to install Windows on that Dell Model XYZ123, serial number 456 only - the hard drives used for that are immaterial. Using that license on another computer is illegal - you cannot legally install Windows from an OEM CD licensed to one computer on to another computer, nor can you legally move the existing installation HD to another computer and use the Windows from that HD. You must re-install Windows using a separate legal Windows license.

Your first post read to me that you suggested to make MY hard drive the slave and the 'faulty' hard drive as master.

No, what I said was,

If your concern if to recover the old data, the best, and legal solution, is to install that drive as a slave, or secondary drive in the new computer, then you can access your old files from within My Computer.

By that, what I mean is to install the bad drive with files you want to retrieve into a working computer as the secondary or slave drive. That's objective #1.

Objective #2, if I understand correctly, is to get your computer working with the new (to this machine) HD as the Windows boot drive - is that correct?

Do you have original Windows CD that came with your computer?

Hi Digerati,
I take your point about the licence but as I built the pc myself and purchased the XP pro seperately I presumed, wrongly apparently, that I owned it! Seems inherently wrong to me but not really relevant as if needs be I have another Microsoft supplied licence. Oh well.

To your objectives:

#1: The 'faulty' hard drive is from my dad's old machine and whilst it does have a valid version of XP pro on I have no interest in the general data.

#2: Ideally. If not possible then I would like at least to save the data on the hard drive (off my pc whose m/board went kaput).

Yes, I do have the XP disk.

Thank you for your valued time and patience.

Cheers.

I take your point about the licence but as I built the pc myself and purchased the XP pro seperately I presumed, wrongly apparently

Ah! That's different - but not really. Sorry. This is probably a gray area with Microsoft because again, even though you bought that copy of XP, if it is an OEM Windows CD, you bought it presumably with a hardware purchase for that old machine. And in that event, Microsoft would not approve of you installing Windows with that CD onto a "2nd" computer - and I think legally, they are right. So perhaps to MS and the law, it is not gray at all!

If me, since the motherboard is toast, I would replace the motherboard and everything else that "failed" in the old PC and use the CD that you purchased for that old PC - to some, that may look like you are just using the old case and calling it the original licensed computer - to me, I call it fixing the PC and using that license bought with it.

If that is a retail copy of Windows (an OEM CD will say OEM on it), then you would be fine in using that license on the "2nd" PC, as long as the first PC is toast.

Clear as mud, huh?

Hi Mate,

Thanks for the clarification and suggestion.
Unfortunately financies dictate how I go about the fix hence making one from two.

If you can offer any assistance in what configuration I should connect the four drives then I'll get on to it and get back once complete.

Cheers.

Okay, under the assumption that you will ensure only a legal copy of Windows will be installed on the authorized computer only...I think whoever you talk to will tell you something different.

Assuming these are all EIDE drives (and not SATA), I would put both hard drives as Masters and the opticals as Slaves. The Boot drive would be attached to the motherboard's Primary IDE connector/channel.

The CD drive would be a Slave (center position on the cable) on the Primary IDE connector. The DVD a Slave attached to the secondary IDE channel via that cable's Slave position.

I prefer using Master/Slave jumper settings - but that's by habit from being burnt one too many times by Cable Select (CS) long ago. That said, CS has matured and can probably be used with no problems. Just make sure all jumpers are set to CS, and the drives are attached to the Master and Slave cable connectors appropriately.

The reason I prefer the HDs to be on separate channels is just that, I like them to be on separate channels - the idea being requested data on the Slave drive is not being held up while the Master drive is using the channel. That said, if you access an optical drive more than a second HD, you may want to configure it with an optical as Master on the secondary IDE channel.

HDs (and their partitions) take precedence over opticals when it comes to drive letters, so your opticals will always have higher letter assignments, and will shift about as hard drives are added or partitioned. Because of that, I always set CD to Q drive, and the DVD to V.