Moving XP installation from laptop to desktop

[John DeStefano]

Hello,

I have an HP Pavilion laptop with Windows XP Home installed on it.
The laptop has died (display is completely blank, and external
monitors show a blank screen), but the hard drive is okay. I bought a
USB external enclosure for the hard drive, and I hooked it up to my
PC. My BIOS permits me to boot from the drive, but the XP
installation itself complains about the hardware and won't boot. I
wanted to then try a repair installation, but the XP disc that came
with the laptop works only on the laptop hardware. So I tried to do a
repair install with an XP Professional disc, but that complains that
the XP Home disk does not contain an XP compatible partition (which is
an odd message, since XP is already installed on it).

What can I do to install some version of XP on this disk to make it
bootable again, without losing the installed settings and
applications?

Thanks,
~John

 

[- Bobb -]

The quick answer: that XP license/software will ONLY work on that model
HP laptop.
You COULD buy a full version of XP and install /overwrite your drive.
No good answer.
HP pays Microsoft a few bucks for every copy of XP they sell
They buy it cheaply because it is written to only work on that PC.
The OEM version of XP is tweaked at the factory to have all the
necessary software to make THEIR hardware work. At boot time it compares
the license with the model of hardware and that's when it quits on you.

If data on drive is critical , add laptop drive as a second drive to your
PC ( change jumper from "PRIMARY" to SECONDARY" ) , boot your PC hard
drive and copy your data from the laptop drive to PC drive.

The HP XP CD is only good for that model PC.
To use that laptop / HP's XP again, you need another same model laptop or
repair exisiting hardware.

Bobb

 

[John DeStefano]

Thanks Bobb. I do have a licensed copy of XP Professional. I tried
to use that CD to do a repair installation on the laptop disk, but it
gave me the error that it the disk did not contain any "XP-compatible
partitions", which doesn't make much sense.

I can hook up the disk and copy all the files, which is good. But I
can't boot from the drive, since it returns the hardware error, and I
would like to make it bootable, if at all possible. Even being able
to completely copy all the files and settings would be okay, if I
could find some way of backing up the data to some format that would
be easy to restore in a new XP installation. The Backup and Restore
Wizard would be great, but I don't think I can use it on that drive,
since I can only access its files and I can't boot into it.

Thanks,
~John

 

[- Bobb -]

John,

To confirm : you have a desktop PC that was/is working fine. ( What OS ?
XP ? )
You have a dead laptop?
If all goes well what is your objective - TWO good pc's ? or XP on desktop
?

1. " I do have a licensed copy of XP Professional." does that mean a
Store-bought Full Windows version" or the HP install CD ?
2. and you lost me on this part :
If you can save your data off the drive , what exactly are you trying to
achieve when you say:
' > if I could find some way of backing up the

data to some format that would
be easy to restore in a new XP installation. '

The HP hardware is toast , right ? What do you mean by " easy to restore"
? Do you mean you want to avoid reinstalling Office/ any apps etc ?? You
need to reinstall them for new installation. If (for example) you bought
MS Office for laptop, the license is only for that laptop.

Installing / using store-bought License #2 on a different drive would
still not allow you to " copy all the stuff from the old drive and have it
boot" - the licenses are different. They need to have the same license
info.

For same reason you can't 'just copy' data off 2 GOOD drives onto one
another. The registry is littered with cross-references to licenses. and
your HP license is limited to THAT specific HP hardware - period. Trust
me - I used to work for compaq and a license for one model doesn't
necessarily work on another compaq model. ( same for Dell/HP etc - I''ve
tried it while experimenting) At install time it will generate an internal
code and compares that to the code on the CD - same - OK. Different =
license not valid for that hardware. With different hardware code will NOT
be the same - failure.

3. So You need to save all of your data onto good pc. Make a "LAPTOP"
folder.
In there make a MY documents, My music - whatever you want and drag and
drop your stuff".

 

[John DeStefano]

Hi Bobb,

Sorry for the confusion! In a nutshell: my wife's laptop's display
died, so I'm trying to move all her data and apps from the laptop to
my desktop, and to make the transition as painless as possible.
That's why it would have been great to be able to just add the disk to
my PC, add that drive/partition to my current boot.ini, and have her
boot in just as she would on the laptop. Physically, that was easy
enough to do; but, as you've explained, the laptop XP installation
doesn't like being moved to a new machine. I assume I'd have to buy a
new license for XP Home (in addition to the OEM disc from HP) and
reinstall the OS onto that drive in order to make it bootable. But
since I already have a store-bought copy of XP Professional, and since
there's no guarantee that buying a new XP Home would boot after that,
I don't see a point in doing so.

As I said, I have been able to hook up her disk to my desktop, and to
view and access its content. So none of her files have been lost.
There are several applications whose data and settings are difficult
to restore, such as her email and IM clients. It would have saved me
quite a bit of time and effort to be able to back it all up with a
utility, like the Backup and Restore Wizard, and then just auto-
magically import it all on a new XP installation. But I can't seem to
do that, so I guess it's back to manual labor for a while.

Thanks,
~John

 

[Guest]

Hello,

I have an HP Pavilion laptop with Windows XP Home installed on it.
The laptop has died (display is completely blank, and external
monitors show a blank screen), but the hard drive is okay. I bought a
USB external enclosure for the hard drive, and I hooked it up to my
PC. My BIOS permits me to boot from the drive, but the XP
installation itself complains about the hardware and won't boot. I
wanted to then try a repair installation, but the XP disc that came
with the laptop works only on the laptop hardware. So I tried to do a
repair install with an XP Professional disc, but that complains that
the XP Home disk does not contain an XP compatible partition (which is
an odd message, since XP is already installed on it).

What can I do to install some version of XP on this disk to make it
bootable again, without losing the installed settings and
applications?

Thanks,
~John

call microsoft tell them you dont need the oem # they can help you