Moving HD to new system

[Jim]

From all I've read this should be possible but everytime I try it
something seems to go wrong. I'm building a new machine with new MB,
CPU and memory. I want to reuse my optical drive and HD. So I put
everything together and fired up the machine. DEL'ed into BIOS and
checked that all settings were good. Then saved and rebooted.
Everything is fine until I (should) boot up windows. Machine
reboots. I go back into the BIOS and double check all settings .
Same result. Take HD out, put it back in old system and it boots up
just fine although it "discovers" new hardware. Fire up new system
with clean HD, install XP Pro and it boots up just fine. So my
question is: why will the new system not work with the old HD. The
BIOS sees the drive, recognizes it but wont boot from it. Any
thoughts.

TIA

 

[Conor]

From all I've read this should be possible but everytime I try it
something seems to go wrong. I'm building a new machine with new MB,
CPU and memory. I want to reuse my optical drive and HD. So I put
everything together and fired up the machine. DEL'ed into BIOS and
checked that all settings were good. Then saved and rebooted.
Everything is fine until I (should) boot up windows. Machine reboots.
I go back into the BIOS and double check all settings . Same result.
Take HD out, put it back in old system and it boots up just fine
although it "discovers" new hardware. Fire up new system with clean HD,
install XP Pro and it boots up just fine. So my question is: why will
the new system not work with the old HD. The BIOS sees the drive,
recognizes it but wont boot from it. Any thoughts.

TIA

You need to boot off a XP CD and do a repair install when you put it in
the new machine as it's trying to use the drivers for the chipset of the
old board.

Doing what you're trying to do seldom works unless it's a similar chipset.

 

[Jim]

You need to boot off a XP CD and do a repair install when you put it in
the new machine as it's trying to use the drivers for the chipset of the
old board.

Doing what you're trying to do seldom works unless it's a similar chipset.

--
Conor

The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how
seldom they defeat us.

Ah ha. That accounts for my success a few machines back

Does this also account for the "new" machine cyclically rebooting?

Thanks for your quick response.

 

[Conor]

Ah ha. That accounts for my success a few machines back

Does this also account for the "new" machine cyclically rebooting?

Thanks for your quick response.

Usually most reliability faults are down to this.

 

[DaveW]

WHENEVER you change the Motherboard that is being used with a harddrive
containing a previous installation of Windows, you MUST reformat the
harddrive and do a fresh install of the OS. Otherwise you will get ongoing
Registry errors and data corruption. The old Windows Registry installation
on the harddrive will not recognize the hardware on the new motherboard and
will fail.

 

[KlausK]

WHENEVER you change the Motherboard that is being used with a harddrive
containing a previous installation of Windows, you MUST reformat the
harddrive and do a fresh install of the OS. Otherwise you will get ongoing
Registry errors and data corruption. The old Windows Registry
installation on the harddrive will not recognize the hardware on the new
motherboard and will fail.

Not really. Google "how to change motherboard without reinstalling the OS."

 

[philo]

WHENEVER you change the Motherboard that is being used with a harddrive
containing a previous installation of Windows, you MUST reformat the
harddrive and do a fresh install of the OS. Otherwise you will get ongoing
Registry errors and data corruption. The old Windows Registry installation
on the harddrive will not recognize the hardware on the new motherboard and
will fail.

Not at all true
A repair install usually does the trick.

I've had over a 95% success rate with the repair install

 

[John Doe]

Not at all true
A repair install usually does the trick.

Whether reinstalling Windows is critical or not, I don't see why
anyone would/should shy away from doing a reinstallation of Windows
on a freshly formatted hard drive when they are replacing the
mainboard, especially if it is their own system.

To the original poster.
Do you have removable media copies of important files from your hard
drive? If not, you are making a boo-boo and no one here will help
you do anything constructive with your computer, until you do. If
you already have backups, good luck and have fun with your new
hardware.

Seems to me that when someone is afraid of reinstalling Windows, you
can guess that they do not have a copy of important files from their
hard drive. Windows and programs settings are a good reason to avoid
reinstalling stuff, but the lack of removable media copies of
important data is a possible bad reason. Like maybe they don't know
how to locate, copy, and then reapply important personal/program
data to a new installation.

 

[Bill]

From all I've read this should be possible but everytime I try it
something seems to go wrong. I'm building a new machine with new MB,
CPU and memory. I want to reuse my optical drive and HD. So I put
everything together and fired up the machine. DEL'ed into BIOS and
checked that all settings were good. Then saved and rebooted.
Everything is fine until I (should) boot up windows. Machine
reboots. I go back into the BIOS and double check all settings .
Same result. Take HD out, put it back in old system and it boots up
just fine although it "discovers" new hardware. Fire up new system
with clean HD, install XP Pro and it boots up just fine. So my
question is: why will the new system not work with the old HD. The
BIOS sees the drive, recognizes it but wont boot from it. Any
thoughts.

TIA

Once again, how to move HDD to new system. I've had 100% success rate
with Win2k and XP:

http://www.mostlycreativeworkshop.com/Article11.html

Bill

 

[Mark F]

Whether reinstalling Windows is critical or not, I don't see why
anyone would/should shy away from doing a reinstallation of Windows
on a freshly formatted hard drive when they are replacing the
mainboard, especially if it is their own system.

Even Windows is a problem since it may be impossible to follow
the path that got you where you are.

My typical system came with a few of its own drivers
(because the manufacturer decided that he had to mess with stuff),
a Microsoft Windows official distribution disk (that obviously doesn't
correspond to the version that was actually used to make the system
that the original installed Windows on my machine came from),
and furthermore was upgraded from Windows XP to SP1 to SP2 by
me, and probably even has had the physical system disk changed
a time or two.

Even with the original Microsoft Windows disks and the {Dell, Compaq
(now hp), and hp} driver disk, reinstallation is iffy. In particular,
the two most recent times I tried I could reinstall Windows to
either of the two different model systems that I tried, even with a
few hours me getting stepped through the procedures over the phone
by the {major company's) US based support people. Each time they gave
up and offered me replacement hardware, and I had to spend a day or
2 fixing the original problem with what should have been a more
difficult and more time consuming procedure than just installing
a few programs on the luckily fairly new systems. (Only 20 or so
add-on programs, rather than the 500 and 3500 on my personal
machines.)

Seems to me that when someone is afraid of reinstalling Windows, you
can guess that they do not have a copy of important files from their
hard drive.
Windows and programs settings are a good reason to avoid
reinstalling stuff, but the lack of removable media copies of
important data is a possible bad reason.
Like maybe they don't know
how to locate, copy, and then reapply important personal/program
data to a new installation.

Good luck getting everything. TurboTax and a bunch of other things
don't have install disks or files that you can use to install stuff.
You have to get at least some stuff online. TurboTax (Intuit?), in
particular doesn't keep stuff around long enough so that you can
install all of the old versions of the software that you might need
in case you get audited.

Even if you have installation files for everything, you probably
can't do things in the same order that they were done the first
time, so things may not wind up the same.

Also, good luck in getting all of your data, let alone all of your
settings, copied from the old system.

 

[pcbldrNinetyEight]

Even Windows is a problem since it may be impossible to follow
the path that got you where you are.

My typical system came with a few of its own drivers
(because the manufacturer decided that he had to mess with stuff),
a Microsoft Windows official distribution disk (that obviously doesn't
correspond to the version that was actually used to make the system
that the original installed Windows on my machine came from),
and furthermore was upgraded from Windows XP to SP1 to SP2 by
me, and probably even has had the physical system disk changed
a time or two.

Even with the original Microsoft Windows disks and the {Dell, Compaq
(now hp), and hp} driver disk, reinstallation is iffy. In particular,
the two most recent times I tried I could reinstall Windows to
either of the two different model systems that I tried, even with a
few hours me getting stepped through the procedures over the phone
by the {major company's) US based support people. Each time they gave
up and offered me replacement hardware, and I had to spend a day or
2 fixing the original problem with what should have been a more
difficult and more time consuming procedure than just installing
a few programs on the luckily fairly new systems. (Only 20 or so
add-on programs, rather than the 500 and 3500 on my personal
machines.)


Good luck getting everything. TurboTax and a bunch of other things
don't have install disks or files that you can use to install stuff.
You have to get at least some stuff online. TurboTax (Intuit?), in
particular doesn't keep stuff around long enough so that you can
install all of the old versions of the software that you might need
in case you get audited.

Even if you have installation files for everything, you probably
can't do things in the same order that they were done the first
time, so things may not wind up the same.

Also, good luck in getting all of your data, let alone all of your
settings, copied from the old system.

This is why I:
Build my own PCs.
Still use WIN98SE.
Don't buy software that requires online update that can't be saved to HD
for future install.
Organizing my data carefully and do regular backups.
Am leaving Windows for Linux.

A reinstall of the OS, all apps and personal data is sometimes mandatory.
If you can't do it your hardware is scrap.

 

[Jim]

Whether reinstalling Windows is critical or not, I don't see why
anyone would/should shy away from doing a reinstallation of Windows
on a freshly formatted hard drive when they are replacing the
mainboard, especially if it is their own system.

To the original poster.
Do you have removable media copies of important files from your hard
drive? If not, you are making a boo-boo and no one here will help
you do anything constructive with your computer, until you do. If
you already have backups, good luck and have fun with your new
hardware.

Seems to me that when someone is afraid of reinstalling Windows, you
can guess that they do not have a copy of important files from their
hard drive. Windows and programs settings are a good reason to avoid
reinstalling stuff, but the lack of removable media copies of
important data is a possible bad reason. Like maybe they don't know
how to locate, copy, and then reapply important personal/program
data to a new installation.

My problem is that I'm under pressure by the other users of the
machine for minimum downtime. I thought if I could get away with a
straight transfer, I'd be up and running in minutes instead of the
hours that a reinstallation will take. Everything is backed up on an
external drive and photos are regularly burnt onto DVD's.

 

[John Doe]

Even Windows is a problem since it may be impossible to follow the
path that got you where you are.

I might need a translation. For one, you don't necessarily need to
be exactly where you are. Hopefully you can end up someplace better.

My typical system came with a few of its own drivers (because the
manufacturer decided that he had to mess with stuff),

Not sure if my translation is correct, But that sounds not unusual.

a Microsoft Windows official distribution disk (that obviously
doesn't correspond to the version that was actually used to make
the system that the original installed Windows on my machine came
from),

Microsoft Windows official distribution disk?

Doesn't correspond to the version you have?

and furthermore was upgraded from Windows XP to SP1 to SP2 by me,
and probably even has had the physical system disk changed a time
or two.

Upgraded by you, and you say "probably" has had "the physical system
disk" changed?

Also, good luck in getting all of your data, let alone all of your
settings, copied from the old system.

If what you're saying is "I have a good excuse for not copying
important files to removable media", you are dead wrong. Only you
can be the judge of whether your files are important, maybe they are
worthless, but important files should always be copied from the hard
drive to removable media.