Hard Disk Moved

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.security_admin (More info?)

Quinn wrote:

> I have a copy of XP Pro that was on the disk of a computer that fired
> the
> power pack. I bought a new computer with XP Home. How can I transfer
> the old disk into the new computer and use XP Pro on it?
>
> thanks,
>
> Earl

I don't know what "fired the power pack" means, but if I understand you
correctly you want to install the old hard drive (which currently has
XP Pro installed on it) as a second drive in your new machine. Then you
would have a dual boot between XP Home and XP Pro. If my understanding
is correct, then you can do this if:

1. The XP Pro on the old disk was a retail copy and not OEM tied to the
original machine or otherwise BIOS-locked to the old motherboard.

2. You have the XP Pro cd, because you will need to do a Repair Install.

You would attach the old hard drive in your new machine as a slave. Then
boot with the XP Pro cd and do a Repair Install, being careful not to
install on the wrong drive. I believe the Repair Install should fix
boot.ini to give you the dual boot option at startup but if it doesn't,
you can just edit boot.ini manually.

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.security_admin (More info?)

"Quinn" <Quinn@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>I have a copy of XP Pro that was on the disk of a computer that fired the
>power pack. I bought a new computer with XP Home. How can I transfer the
>old disk into the new computer and use XP Pro on it?
>
>thanks,
>
>Earl

If it is just the power supply in the XP Pro computer that was fried
then it may be worthwhile replacing it. They are not that expensive
and the installation is not especially difficult. Just 4 to 6 screws
and half a dozen or so power connectors to put into place.

There may be problems with getting the hard drive with the installed
XP Pro to work in the different computer. Best case scenario is that
you will have to do a "repair install" of the Windows XP Pro in order
to configure it to work properly with the hardware in the new
computer, and that may not be possible if the XP Pro is an OEM version
that came bundled with the computer.
See http://michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html for details.

The second problem you will encounter is that the installed XP Pro is
configured to run from drive C:, the same drive letter that is being
used by the XP Home already in the new computer. If you put the XP
hard drive into the new computer it will be given a different drive
letter and that will cause serious problems, requiring more than just
a Repair Install to overcome. Your best bet might be to use a Boot
Manager program such as BootItNG from http://www.bootitng.com which
can be configured so that the non-booting drives are hidden. This
will allow your operating system to run as drive C: no matter which
hard drive you boot from.

Hope this is of some assistance.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm