howdy all,
Here's my situation: Replaced a motherboard in a client's system.
Existing XP Home installation would not boot even in Safe Mode due to
hardware differences.
Normally, and assuming a retail license (many factory-installed OEM
installations are BIOS-locked to a specific chipset and therefore *not*
transferable to a new motherboard - check yours before starting), unless
the new motherboard is virtually identical (same chipset, same IDE
controllers, same BIOS version, etc.) to the one on which the WinXP
installation was originally performed, you'll need to perform a repair
(a.k.a. in-place upgrade) installation, at the very least:
How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=KB;EN-US;Q315341
Changing a Motherboard or Moving a Hard Drive with WinXP Installed
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html
The "why" is quite simple, really, and has nothing to do with
licensing issues, per se; it's a purely technical matter, at this point.
You've pulled the proverbial hardware rug out from under the OS. (If
you don't like -- or get -- the rug analogy, think of it as picking up a
Cape Cod style home and then setting it down onto a Ranch style
foundation. It just isn't going to fit.) WinXP, like Win2K before it,
is not nearly as "promiscuous" as Win9x when it comes to accepting any
old hardware configuration you throw at it. On installation it
"tailors" itself to the specific hardware found. This is one of the
reasons that the entire WinNT/2K/XP OS family is so much more stable
than the Win9x group.
As always when undertaking such a significant change, back up any
important data before starting.
This will also probably require re-activation, unless you have a
Volume Licensed version of WinXP Pro installed. If it's been more than
120 days since you last activated that specific Product Key, you'll most
likely be able to activate via the Internet without problem. If it's
been less, you might have to make a 5 minute phone call.
I did a parallel installation of XP Pro ....
I hope that you put this installation on a separate partition. Placing
two operating systems in the same partition is a recipe for disaster. A
careful, knowledgeable specialist can do this safely for a short period
of time, but the ordinary PC user had better be backing up his data
hourly, as a catastrophic failure is a matter of "when," rather than "if."
.... from my own disk and got them
running so they could access their data, but this copy is not activated
and I need to get their original legal copy of XP Home working again.
The only "Windows" CD they have is an OEM restore disk that replaces
the entire partition.
Then you'll have to obtain and use an unbranded, generic OEM CD to
perform the necessary repair installation.
Here's the million dollar question, and you guys are my Phone A Friend
lifeline...
How can I remove or change the driver info in the XP Home install,
while booted up into the XP Pro install, so that I can then boot into
XP Home?
You can't.
Alternate solutions like backing up and re-installing need not apply...
Is it wise to arbitrarily eliminate the only correct solution? You're
not doing your clients any favors by refusing to fix the problem you've
created.
--
Bruce Chambers
Help us help you:
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin
