Installing old hard drive in new computer

[Guest]

When I use an old IDE hard drive with pre-installed Windows XP Professional,
my new computer doesn't recognize it.

The computer works fine if I use an empty, formatted IDE hard drive and
install Windows.

The hard drive came from an older computer that had a different motherboard.

Is there any way I can use the old hard drive (which has all of my programs)
in the new computer? Or must I format the drive and reinstall Windows?

The specs for my new computer are as follows:

Motherboard: M2N-SLIDeluxe
CPU: AMD 64 X2 Dual Core 5600+
Graphics card: PNY Technologies GeForce 7300 GT
Memory: Corsair 2Gbyte DDR2 Twin2X

 

[Ron Badour]

Please explain your comment: my new computer doesn't recognize it. There
are three places where a hard drive should be recognized: the BIOS, device
manager and Windows Explorer--what about your PC? What happens when you try
to boot? Any error messages?

 

[David Webb]

Simply follow the applicable procedures in the section titled, "Replace a failed
motherboard" in this MS tech article:

How to replace the motherboard on a computer that is running Windows Server
2003, Windows XP, or Windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;824125

 

[Rock]

When I use an old IDE hard drive with pre-installed Windows XP
Professional,
my new computer doesn't recognize it.

The computer works fine if I use an empty, formatted IDE hard drive and
install Windows.

The hard drive came from an older computer that had a different
motherboard.

Is there any way I can use the old hard drive (which has all of my
programs)
in the new computer? Or must I format the drive and reinstall Windows?

<snip>

Are you trying to take a drive that has XP installed from one computer and
use it as the boot drive in a different computer? If that's the case at the
least you'll need to do a repair install. In some cases if the changes in
hardware are significant enough, it will need a clean install. See this
link:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html

What do you mean by "it doesn't recognize it"?

 

[Guest]

I used the wrong words to describe the problem. Windows XP does not
successfully boot when I install the old hard drive. Windows attempts to
load. I then get the failure notice explaining asking me to load Windows in
normal mode or in safe mode. After choosing either mode, the process repeats
itself.

My BIOS program indicates that the hard drive is successfully installed. I
should have elaborated. It's not a problem of the new system not recognizing
the hard drive. Instead, Windows does not successfully load.

Nonetheless, I received several answers from my post. I think I know how to
solve the problem.

 

[mikeyhsd]

are you trying to use this hard drive as the main drive to boot from or installed as a second SLAVE drive.
if main drive to boot from, then do a repair install so windows recognizes the differences in the computer.
if secondary SLAVE, what happens if you disconnect it.



(e-mail address removed)



I used the wrong words to describe the problem. Windows XP does not
successfully boot when I install the old hard drive. Windows attempts to
load. I then get the failure notice explaining asking me to load Windows in
normal mode or in safe mode. After choosing either mode, the process repeats
itself.

My BIOS program indicates that the hard drive is successfully installed. I
should have elaborated. It's not a problem of the new system not recognizing
the hard drive. Instead, Windows does not successfully load.

Nonetheless, I received several answers from my post. I think I know how to
solve the problem.