swapping hard drives ?

[dwolf]

I have two dells both with XP.. They are not the same model.
The older one has been having freeze up issues and probably just needs a
operation reinstall.
My new system came with XP. I loaded all of my programs.. and after a
couple of months I added a second drive where I put Vista. After a short
time I unplugged the XP drive and there it sat.

First of all... the problem pc is my wifes..
What would happen if I put my old XP drive in hers... (please no jokes)
moved all of her data and setting over and then took out her original drive.
My drive has all the programs she would need.

The programs on the new drive. Will they run ?
And any other problems to consider ?

Thanks

J

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I have two dells both with XP.. They are not the same model.
The older one has been having freeze up issues and probably just needs a
operation reinstall.
My new system came with XP. I loaded all of my programs.. and after a
couple of months I added a second drive where I put Vista. After a short
time I unplugged the XP drive and there it sat.

First of all... the problem pc is my wifes..
What would happen if I put my old XP drive in hers... (please no jokes)
moved all of her data and setting over and then took out her original
drive. My drive has all the programs she would need.

The programs on the new drive. Will they run ?
And any other problems to consider ?

Thanks

J

The issues with moving the XP drive from system to system have to do with
drivers. If you try to start the older system with the newer drive, the
newer drive will have an OS that thinks expects to see hardware that isn't
there.

A way around this is to install the new drive but boot from the XP Install
CD, and do a repair install. This will force a re-detection and install of
some of the correct drivers.

You will also have to have the correct drivers for that system on hand.
Fortunately, Dell makes this very easy to do. Look on the back of the
system for the Service Tag number, log into the Dell site and use that
number to find the drivers you need. Download them (use another system),
save them to CD, and you're ready.

Once that's done, the installed programs will work as before - repair
installs don't do much with the registry if the hardware is the same. That
is why repair installs don't fix a lot of problems that are rooted in the
registry.

Create a new account on the drive and transfer her data over. Settings are
usually trivial, just account names and passwords, so it's often quickest to
just recreate those.

Third to last, before you start, mount that XP drive on another system, look
in the root, and delete the one or two largest files there, hiberfil.sys and
pagefile.sys. These won't be valid for the new hardware and will be
recreated as needed.

Second to last, when you move the newer drive over, detach the old drive and
do not reattach it till you are ready to move the data.

And finally, it's always a good idea to start with taking a backup of the
drive you're about to repair. Just get the Acronis TrueImage trial
version, make an image of the drive, and if things blow up you can just
restore the image and start over.


HTH
-pk