Hard drive swap

[dnb204]

I have a dell dimension 520c with vista. There was a power surge and the computer will not come on power supply checks out good. I bought a use 520c that works fine but it is running xp. If I swap the hard drives out will it boot up with vista or will I need to configure something?

 

[MikeJRamsey]

Will it boot? In a word, no. Both Vista and Xp have license software that ties it to the motherboard (mobo).

Find out what is wrong. If the mobo is bad but the hard drive (HDD) is good then swap the mobo in from the used 520c and then see this link.
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/5c59f8c1-b0d1-4f1a-af55-74f3922f3f351033.mspx

If the mobo is good but the hdd is bad you could contact a disaster recovery service and pay to have them recovery your data to a new drive or buy a new drive and reinstall Vista and all your programs.

Or, you could try wiping the HDD on the used 520c and reinstalling Vista and your programs there. You will need the above link.