Hard Drive Swap

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I currently have a machine that has a HD that came installed with XP Home on
it. I was just given a better machine with XP Professional installed. I
just want to swap my old HD with XP Home into the new machine. When I try to
do this, it does not boot. Is there something that XP Professional leaves on
the new machine that will not allow XP Home to boot?

Thanks
 
MarkCFS said:
I currently have a machine that has a HD that came installed with XP Home on
it. I was just given a better machine with XP Professional installed. I
just want to swap my old HD with XP Home into the new machine. When I try to
do this, it does not boot. Is there something that XP Professional leaves on
the new machine that will not allow XP Home to boot?

Thanks
Click to expand...

If your XP Home came preinstalled on a computer then it is almost
certainly an OEM version. The licenses for OEM versions are
permanently locked to the first computer they are installed on and
cannot be legitimately transferred to another computer under any
circumstances.

Read the information in the file EULA.TXT in the \windows\system32
folder of the XP Home machine. That will precisely spell out the
actual terms and conditions for that specific Windows XP Home license.

Good luck


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

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
 
Greetings --

Normally, and assuming a retail license (many OEM installations
and licenses are not transferable to a new motherboard - check yours
_before_ starting), unless the new motherboard is virtually identical
(same chipset, same IDE controllers, same BIOS version, etc.) to the
one on which the WinXP installation was originally performed, you'll
need to perform a repair (a.k.a. in-place upgrade) installation, at
the very least:

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=KB;EN-US;Q315341

As always when undertaking such a significant change, back up any
important data before starting.

This will also require re-activation, unless you have a Volume
Licensed version of WinXP Pro installed. If it's been more than 120
days since you last activated that specific Product Key, you'll most
likely be able to activate via the internet without problem. If it's
been less, you might have to make a 5 minute phone call.


Bruce Chambers
--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. - RAH
 
OK Mark, setting aside the EULA and if, if not, you have the 'authority' or
'legal right' to do this: there is a better way.

Use Files and Settings Transfer Wizard on the Home PC. Export all you
information to a folder on the Hard drive. If space is sufficient, then Copy
that to a CD. Place the CD in the Pro PC and use FAST and import.

This will bring over all your data, internet settings, email settings and
files. So your Pro PC now takes on the personality of your Home PC: even the
desktop background!

Then if you need any other applications, use you original install CDs and
install Office or whatever on the Pro PC. After everthying is running as you
want it: then uninstall Office etc. You'll meet all EULA terms and
conditions.

Good luck
 
WHat you want to do is put your XP Home Hard Drive in the new computer,
right? You can do this, but it will require that you do a repair
operation on XP in order to get it to boot properly.

Here is what you want to do:
Put the XP Home Hard drive at the end of the IDE Cable and set it to
Master with the jumpers on the back of the drive. Put the XP Pro Hard
drive in the middle of the IDE cable and set the jumpers to Slave. Now
you are going to boot off your Windows XP CD, select to install, it will
find the existing OS and offer to repair it, press R to repair, and you
are good to go from there.

If you don't have a CD, then I suggest you obtain one from whomever you
purchased the computer through as they should be obligated to provide
you with it since you paid for it.

There is one thing that is bothering me. If you have XP Pro, I would
suggest keeping that over XP Home unless the Pro is illegal or
something. Pro has a few more features that may come in handy down the
road for you ;)
 
Nathan McNulty said:
If you want to keep programs from one install and transfer to another,
you will want to use the File and Settings Transfer Wizard. Here is a
great link on how to use this:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/crawford_november12.mspx
Click to expand...

F.A.S.T.W. will not transfer installed programs. Period.

It does transfer user data files and program configuration settings
(excluding passwords).

See the article by former MVP Gary Woodruff at
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/fast.htm


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

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
 
So it will only keep the settings for the programs such as Outlook 2003,
but it will not actually transfer the program itself? I have used it
once to backup the data, but then ended up deleting it and just doing a
clean install of everything and resetting it all up. That is good to
know that it won't transfer programs themselves. I just can't believe
my backup was like 12 GB of data without even including the actual
programs! It was quite a bit less than the size of the programs and all
that, but I figured there was compression involved or something.

Thanks for the heads up Ron ;)
 
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