Trying to use my old hard drive

[pc43522]

I had a dell pc that the motherboard went bad on. I have another pc (HP) that I want to put the Dell hard drive into as the master drive as I have a lot of software and info on it that I didn't have backed up. I tried to just switch out the hard drives but it came up to a screen where it siad there were configuration problems and it might be a virus. Do I need to go into the configuration upon start up and tell it this is a different hard drive? I apologize in advance as I am not sure what I am doing. I would eventually like to have the dell hard drive as the master and the hp as a slave but they both have xp on them and someone told me I can't do that?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Branden]

so you're trying to get your HP computer to boot up your Dell installation? very rarely does that work, only once did i get away with it.
you can increase the chances of getting it running by booting up from a your windows install disc and running its repair mode. it might (MIGHT!) be able to load the appropriate drivers for the new hardware thereby getting the Dell installation to run on the HP's hardware, but don't hold your breath. in my experience this has given me 30% chance of success.
if that doesn't work then you're stuck with having to do a fresh install, which is what i'd advise anyways.

as always, back up your data before trying stuff like this.

 

[WyomingKnott]

+1 for branden.

 

[pc43522]

Best answer selected by pc43522.

 

[pc43522]

so you're trying to get your HP computer to boot up your Dell installation? very rarely does that work, only once did i get away with it.
you can increase the chances of getting it running by booting up from a your windows install disc and running its repair mode. it might (MIGHT!) be able to load the appropriate drivers for the new hardware thereby getting the Dell installation to run on the HP's hardware, but don't hold your breath. in my experience this has given me 30% chance of success.
if that doesn't work then you're stuck with having to do a fresh install, which is what i'd advise anyways.

as always, back up your data before trying stuff like this.

THanks. This might be best left to the professionals.