Windows XP Pro Problem

I'm trying to transfer a working hard drive running Windows XP Pro (service pack 2) from Computer A to Computer B. The hard drive is the only drive in Computer A and will be the only drive in Computer B.

When the hard drive is installed into Computer B, it stops during boot-up and says that a change in hardware has been detected. It then gives the option of rebooting in safe mode, safe mode with network support, safe mode with command prompt, or normally. No matter which option is selected, Computer B goes back to that error screen during boot-up. However, when the hard drive is placed back into Computer A, it boots without a problem.

Any ideas as to how I can resolve this problem without having to lose data that's already stored on the hard drive?

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Comments

D-boy

Did you check the drivers? Jumper settings?

/usr

What is the difference in the hardware? I would try pulling out anything from Computer B that you can. Network cards, any other PCI cards, etc.

Possibly boot the drive from Computer A and uninstall all hardware/drivers from Computer A, if Computer B has different hardware.

Will Computer B boot any drive? Do you have a spare drive to test? If it will, it would appear that there's some hardware that's keeping the machine from booting, hence my original suggestions.

s73v3n2k

This is because the HAL required by the new system is different. With windows XP systems hardware has to be identical or the chips sets , drive controllers and bios need to be the same on the motherboard for you to do what you are trying to do.

To fix this you need to do a repair install. Not sure if ASR will sort this but an inplace install will. There are no shortcuts for doing this.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q315341&ID=KB;EN-US;Q315341

RussS

Put the XP disk in the drive and select the 2nd repair option. The first repair option is good for fixing an installation that is a bit screwy, but you need to go fo the other option at that point. After you hit the f8 key to accept the EULA you will be given the second repair option. When you use this it will be like a fresh install and will pull down new system files (and more importantly drivers etc as needed by your new HAL). It does not format anything and will leave your programs etc working and your data in place. It will however roll you back to whatever version of the OS is on the CD and you will need to run updates to bring everything up to scratch.

Like anything - take a backup of your data before you start playing with the drive.

/usr

jmc724

Once you get to that option it means your boot.ini file is good(ntloader etc), just boot into safe mode then restart computer.

Chose repair if cant be done.

I am presuming the new hard disk is of a diff manufacturer. You can reinstall the OS if needed since ms requires new hardware to be more that 6 different items in order to use a diff activation key. You will be fine if you have to do a reinstall.

Ricka182

/usr wrote:

Ditto.

3000GT

I had a similar problem, my computert died and i had to put my hdd in another computer, i set the hard drive and a slave and booted into windows...

But i couldnt access my documents in the doc&settings directory - access denied...

Ive just started learning XP Pro so i think it has something to do with permitions right?

Sorry for the hijack, but it sounded similar to what i was going to do.

s73v3n2k

RobsonGTO wrote:

I had a similar problem, my computert died and i had to put my hdd in another computer, i set the hard drive and a slave and booted into windows...

But i couldnt access my documents in the doc&settings directory - access denied...

Ive just started learning XP Pro so i think it has something to do with permitions right?

Sorry for the hijack, but it sounded similar to what i was going to do.

What you talking about there is your ACL (access control list). However if you didn't boot from the installation of XP that you created the ACL's in then they shouldn't prevent you from accessing your files. The only thing that would stop this is if you encrypted your files.

basically the system will only load the ACL on the system disk at boot so if you made this drive a slave your not using the ACL created in the other system. Meaning you have access to all the files on that disk.

only other thing i can think of is the disk was faulty. Could you access other files on the disk? How was the HDD configured ?