Moving hard drive to another machine

[Art]

The user has an HP notebook that she's disposing of. We want to move the
entire contents of her hard drive to a desktop computer after which her
present notebook's hard drive will be formatted so that the XP (Home
edition) will be removed from the notebook.

We cloned her notebook's HD to an external hard drive and then cloned the
latter to the internal HD on the new desktop computer. Naturally it will not
boot to a Desktop nor boot in Safe Mode, as we anticipated. The problem is
that when we boot with the new XP install disk (new retail version of XP
Home), there's no Repair install facility available. XP doesn't "see" the
previous Windows installation; it just sees the formatted partition and will
only allow us to make a new install of the OS on that partition, or delete
the partition. We assume that this is because the XP OS on the desktop
computer's drive is an OEM version.

Is there any way around this dilemma? I note we can access the Recovery
console from the XP install disk. I wonder if there's some way to achieve
the objective through that avenue? Any help would be appreciated.

Art

 

[Alvin Brown]

Hello

Your best option just install XP on the Desktop and just copy
here data over. You will be spending more time trying to find
a solution and it's just better to just re-install the App's and
just copy here data back over.

al

 

[joust in jest]

Use the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard to transfer files and settings.

steve

 

[Ron Martell]

The user has an HP notebook that she's disposing of. We want to move the
entire contents of her hard drive to a desktop computer after which her
present notebook's hard drive will be formatted so that the XP (Home
edition) will be removed from the notebook.

We cloned her notebook's HD to an external hard drive and then cloned the
latter to the internal HD on the new desktop computer. Naturally it will not
boot to a Desktop nor boot in Safe Mode, as we anticipated. The problem is
that when we boot with the new XP install disk (new retail version of XP
Home), there's no Repair install facility available. XP doesn't "see" the
previous Windows installation; it just sees the formatted partition and will
only allow us to make a new install of the OS on that partition, or delete
the partition. We assume that this is because the XP OS on the desktop
computer's drive is an OEM version.

Is there any way around this dilemma? I note we can access the Recovery
console from the XP install disk. I wonder if there's some way to achieve
the objective through that avenue? Any help would be appreciated.

Art

Boot the new desktop machine with a Windows 98 Startup Disk and then
run

FDISK /STATUS

Does it show any partitions at all on the drive?

You could also try using MBRWORK from the free utilities section at
www.bootitng.com

I have used it before to find "lost" partitions on a hard drive.

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."

 

[Art]

Boot the new desktop machine with a Windows 98 Startup Disk and then
run

FDISK /STATUS

Does it show any partitions at all on the drive?

You could also try using MBRWORK from the free utilities section at
www.bootitng.com

I have used it before to find "lost" partitions on a hard drive.

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."

Ron:
As I indicated in my posting there's no problem involving a "lost"
partition. The XP install disk "sees" the formatted partition during Setup.
It just doesn't "see" that there's a Windows OS on that partition. Thus, no
Repair option is available during Setup.

Art

 

[Ron Martell]

Ron:
As I indicated in my posting there's no problem involving a "lost"
partition. The XP install disk "sees" the formatted partition during Setup.
It just doesn't "see" that there's a Windows OS on that partition. Thus, no
Repair option is available during Setup.

Art

That indicates some kind of a failure during the disk copying process.

How about the external hard drive? Can you connect it up to a
functioning computer and see what the contents are?

You could try copying direct by removing the hard drive from the
laptop and using a 2.5 to 3.5 inch drive adapter to install it
temporarily into the new desktop machine. Then use your drive cloning
software to do the copy.

Having to use an intermediate disk (the external hard drive) is just
one more place for things to go wrong, and Murphy's Law does rule the
Universe.

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."

 

[Guest]

So, the entire contents of the notebook HD is on the new
internal HD of the desktop.

In which case, it is trying to boot like it is on the
laptop.

Is it trying to boot up? Does windows start to load but
then blue screen on you?

Only thing I can recommend is getting into your recovery
console (as you mentioned you are able to access) and do
a FIXMBR

Doing this may allow the disk to see the Windows
partition and allow you to do a repair install of XP
Home, which will install all of the essential files
(recognizing that you are no longer booting from the
laptop, but the new desktop).

If you haven't wiped out the information on the laptop HD
yet, reformat the desktop HD, set the laptop HD up as a
slave, and see if you can copy the required files over to
the new HD.

 

[Nathan McNulty]

The suggestion to set up the desktop harddrive as Master and Laptop
Harddrive as Slave is an excellent idea that I use with my laptop
harddrive.

There is one thing to note though, you will need to buy a convertor for
your laptop harddrive to work in your desktop. These convertors are
pretty cheap and run about $5-$10 at your local computer store.

Nathan McNulty

 

[Art]

----- Original Message -----
From: Art
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2004 10:39 AM
Subject: Moving hard drive to another machine


The user has an HP notebook that she's disposing of. We want to move the
entire contents of her hard drive to a desktop computer after which her
present notebook's hard drive will be formatted so that the XP (Home
edition) will be removed from the notebook.

We cloned her notebook's HD to an external hard drive and then cloned the
latter to the internal HD on the new desktop computer. Naturally it will not
boot to a Desktop nor boot in Safe Mode, as we anticipated. The problem is
that when we boot with the new XP install disk (new retail version of XP
Home), there's no Repair install facility available. XP doesn't "see" the
previous Windows installation; it just sees the formatted partition and will
only allow us to make a new install of the OS on that partition, or delete
the partition. We assume that this is because the XP OS on the desktop
computer's drive is an OEM version.

Is there any way around this dilemma? I note we can access the Recovery
console from the XP install disk. I wonder if there's some way to achieve
the objective through that avenue? Any help would be appreciated.

Art

That indicates some kind of a failure during the disk copying process.

How about the external hard drive? Can you connect it up to a
functioning computer and see what the contents are?

You could try copying direct by removing the hard drive from the
laptop and using a 2.5 to 3.5 inch drive adapter to install it
temporarily into the new desktop machine. Then use your drive cloning
software to do the copy.

Having to use an intermediate disk (the external hard drive) is just
one more place for things to go wrong, and Murphy's Law does rule the
Universe.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada

Ron:
Thanks for your comments. There was no problem either with the USB external
drive nor the disk cloning (both with respect to the clone from the notebook
computer to the external drive and the clone from the external drive to the
fixed internal drive on the new computer).

Actually, I hadn't work on the machine myself. I was trying to help some
friends long-distance and walking them through the process. I later learned
that the XP disk that came with their new desktop computer was the
Professional Edition. They were able to exchange it for the Home Edition by
the local computer shop that had sold them the computer. Unlike the missing
Repair install option on the PE disk, that facility was an option on the HE
disk, so they were able to perform a Repair install on their new computer's
hard disk without any further problem. Interestingly, the HE disk is a "OEM
Product" as Microsoft labels it. Strange that the Professional Edition they
originally used did not offer a Repair install option in this situation,
notwithstanding the fact that the disk they were trying to Repair was a HE
version.

Art

 

[Ron Martell]

Ron:
Thanks for your comments. There was no problem either with the USB external
drive nor the disk cloning (both with respect to the clone from the notebook
computer to the external drive and the clone from the external drive to the
fixed internal drive on the new computer).

Actually, I hadn't work on the machine myself. I was trying to help some
friends long-distance and walking them through the process. I later learned
that the XP disk that came with their new desktop computer was the
Professional Edition. They were able to exchange it for the Home Edition by
the local computer shop that had sold them the computer. Unlike the missing
Repair install option on the PE disk, that facility was an option on the HE
disk, so they were able to perform a Repair install on their new computer's
hard disk without any further problem. Interestingly, the HE disk is a "OEM
Product" as Microsoft labels it. Strange that the Professional Edition they
originally used did not offer a Repair install option in this situation,
notwithstanding the fact that the disk they were trying to Repair was a HE
version.

Art

Not really surprising at all, because of the different XP versions
involved - Home versus Pro. Repair Installs are only done on the
same version, ostensibly using the same CD as was used for the
original install.

Glad to hear it worked out okay for you in the end.

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."