Originally Posted by jephree

XP needs to be installed on the motherboard that uses it. You cannot just move Operating System drives from computer to computer.

If you have needed data I'd suggest moving the problem drive into another working computer in order to extract the data.

The other drive with XP on it used to be in this PC so will be compatible with the m/b.

I would like to move the problem drive but apart from the travel involved, of the 2 PC's I have at home one has no SATA ports and the other while it has SATA ports is running on an IDE drive.

Can 2 different drives (SATA & IDE) be used on the same PC?

I have had numerous problems with SATA drives and virtually none with IDE. Is this normal or am I unlucky.

The problem PC I think can only have SATA drives fitted or I would be inclined to junk them and switch to IDE.

SATA drives are what is used now. IDE is old and soon to be obsolete.

But yes they can be mixed.

The motherboard registers not only the Product Key but also the Boot Sector of an Operating System when it is installed.

If you move XP from one computer to another the essence of the move is that you need to de-activate the old motherboard in order to activate the new one.

The Microsoft "rule" here is one paid version of XP (product key) can only be used on one computer at a time. If moved you need to de-activate the old in order to activate the new.

Sorry I think I have confused you. When I said this computer I meant the one in question , my sons. The drive I am thinking of swapping for came out of my sons one originally so the product key will be the same.

Sometimes things get confusing.

I would suggest the following:

1) Run that Hitachi Diagnostic on the problem hard drive.

In order to do so that diagnostic needs to be loaded on a floppy etc. like the SATA drivers were.

It becomes a Boot floppy and will diagnose any hardware problems with the hard drive.

2) If issues persist: either:

2a) Buy a new hard drive and Clean Install XP. After which the old drive can be accessed from the new drive.

2b) Create a Live CD such as UBUNTU and boot that in order to see if it can read the hard drive in question.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

3) In the future back up any "vital" data to a second drive and or DVD etc.

Latest news

Went down to visit my son taking the drive which used to be in his pc. plugged in drive after disconnecting iffy drive. PC booted up OK.

Plugged in iffy drive.

System really had problems with this drive connected, could not see it in my computer and could not access any files on it.

Tried using iffy drive as the boot drive but cuold not get as far as repair or recovery even when using XP disc to boot off.

Left the working boot drive with him and took the iffy one home.

Plugged in iffy drive to home PC as a slave and booted. This really caused problems with speed and access but drive could be seen in my computer. However some of the folders on the iffy drive were showing as empty eg the windows folder! Opening the folder didn't make any files appear.

Unplugged iffy drive and booted up as normal. Then plugged in iffy drive and could see all the files in the folders! PC running ok as well so quickly copied all the files my son wanted onto the desktop and then burnt them to cd's and sent them to him. Phew!

Tried to run the Hitachi diagnostic disc by booting on it but came up with the message non system disc. Am I doing the right thing by booting up with this in the A drive?

I would like to verify that the drive is faulty so I can take it back and get it changed.

Assuming you put the Hitachi diagnostic on a floppy and created it properly then it should boot.

Technical support: Drive Fitness Test (DFT) - Installation instructions

Verify in the BIOS that the floppy drive is set to boot prior to any other drive.

hi Jephree sorry if i highjack this thread, but you helped me a while ago with my new sata drive. i got a problem after my dauther install the latest video driver from nvidia. i can't get windows xp home to boot not even in safe mode it keeps taking me back to the same screen with options "safe mode" "safe mode with network" etc you know the screeen . i try every option but nothing .

once again sory for this man

Boot the XP CD into the Recovery Console:

Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console

Try the command FIXBOOT

i will give it a try, will post back may be a a few minutes thanks

ok now i put the xp cd in, when i go to the point where i press r to repair it is giving me an error mesage.

*** stop : 0x00000024 (0x011902fa,0xf7ca5b70,0xf7ca5870,0xf7744383d)

*** ntfs.sys-address f744383d base at f7432000 date stamp 3d6de5c1