P2B - HD Question

[Crhoff]

I have a 60 Gig HD with Win XP Pro on it that I use with a P4B 2.5 Gig P4
machine. When I put this in my P2B 500 Meg machine it won't boot. I have
the latest bio and it's set to auto detect. Is XP machine sensitive?
Anybody got any suggestions to try?

Thanks
Crhoff

 

[Roland Scheidegger]

I have a 60 Gig HD with Win XP Pro on it that I use with a P4B 2.5 Gig P4
machine. When I put this in my P2B 500 Meg machine it won't boot. I have
the latest bio and it's set to auto detect. Is XP machine sensitive?
Anybody got any suggestions to try?

What do you mean with "won't boot"? Does the bios recognize the hd
correctly (you need iirc at least 1014 beta 1 bios for the p2b,
recommended is 1014 beta 3)?
When you simply get a "inaccessible boot device" that's because windows
xp is using the wrong ide driver, and it can't use a generic ide driver
as a fallback unfortunately (a design mistake imho, but that's another
topic, the only other criticial driver afaik is the graphic driver, but
this one has a generic vga fallback). There are articles out there how
you can repair that, iirc a repair installation will do the trick.

(Though from the description it sounds like you want to move the hd back
and forth between the boards - definitely not a good idea...)

Roland

 

[DaveW]

You CANNOT load XP on a computer with one motherboard and then move the
harddrive to another computer with a different model of motherboard and
expect it to boot.

 

[Daniel Mandic]

Yes,



don,t forget the XP-CD.
Alternatively you could also use a Partition Manager.

Then booting from the OS-CD, installing .... voila. The HD should work.

Maybe you could also try a NTFS R/W program, make a bootdisk and remove
the P4.sys file with the p3.sys file.


O.K. just a joke. No, I think using a P4 XP installation with a P2/3
system is not easy to realize. I also tried a AMD Athlon installation
on a P3 and it wont boot.


Only solution I have in my Mind is: Making two Partitions on the HD.
One for P3 (C and one for P4 (D
When using the P3 install XP on C:
When using the P4, set the BIOS Boot drive to D: and boot.
!!! I would suggest first making the D: and then the C: ... I mean
leaving the C: Partition (physically at the beginning) free, Installing
with the P4 (BIOS set to D XP on D: (The system will it show as C,
and then afterwards installing XP with the P3 on C: (BIOS on C, or
vice versa.
I think when the C: drive is formatted when installing with the BIOS D:
trick, the XP kernel avoid the BIOS Settings as it is phisically on the
disk. So you should not format c: (just make a partition), just D:
should be formatted first, then installing OS with boot drive D: on.
Then format C: with the system you have now on D: (XP shows C change
the HD to the other PC, leave BIOS Boot on C: and install. with the
BootCD, off course.

Changing the BIOS to Boot D: will not make you, then, any problems in
the future. I think just the setup of XP changes the BIOS setting but
when it is fully installed you will not see a difference.



Maybe there a are more solutions, Boot Manager etc. etc,....


Good Luck!




Best Regards,

Daniel Mandic


P.S.: Two small Boot Partitions (1-2GB each) should be enough, and the
rest of the platter (E: or F: and more) for both systems.

 

[Crhoff]

Thanks for all the info from those who answered. I never knew you couldn't
just move drives between machines.

 

[Mercury]

It is a lot easier to move data drives, but windows OS drives are a no Go as
the others have indicated *unless* they are identical. The MAC address on
the NIC may mean you have to reactivate windows (unless it s a volume
license system) each time. I would expect MS would regard this as illegal as
you are effectively running 1 copy of an OS on 2 machines.