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Can't boot with my old hard drive, *need* it to boot again

N

Navaros

Member
I removed my old hard from my old computer without doing any preparation on it first. I figured a repair installation of Windows XP Pro would let it boot with my new computer. I was totally wrong. I successfully did a repair installation on my old hard drive. Now my old hard drive will not boot at all in either my new computer, or my old computer. It gives a BSOD right after the Windows XP Pro loading screen comes up after the POST etc and says to "remove any recently installed hard disks or hard disks controllers". That doesn't solve my problem - I need the problem fixed, not removed.

Also when I tried to use the "Create Partition" option on my old hard drive in Windows setup and then in Windows Recovery Console, it wouldn't do anything when I pressed "C".
I think it was denying me access to alter the drive in any way.

I need my old hard drive to boot exactly as it used to, in my new computer. with all my settings and registry entries intact.

Forsaking my settings on the old drive is not an option.

I just went out and bought a new hard drive for the sake of being able to troubleshoot this problem. After I get my old drive to boot I will try to copy it byte for byte onto my new hard drive.

In the mean time please tell me how to make my old hard drive boot again with all my settings and registry intact.
 
You might be FUBARed by now.

Have you tried putting the old HD back in the old system and doing a Repair Install?
 
Yes I did try that, but it didn't work.

Why would I be fubared?

I need a way to unfubar this situation.

Isn't there some software or windows command that can do this, or something?
 
Kind of late to tell you this now, but any time you use your old boot drive with a new mb, etc., it is best to mirror it to a spare hd first. I always do that, even if I intend to do a clean install of everything. If I then discover a week later that I forgot to back something up, I still have it.

If I do not intend to do a fresh copy of Windows, I still have a copy if things don't go well with the swap, and can mirror it back to the original drive to try again. After making a copy, the first thing I do is remove all of the drivers for the mb in device manager (audio, lan, hd controlers, etc.). Then install it and try a repair install.

My guess is that you did not remove the original drivers first, and now you really are screwed.
 
I'm definitely feeling very screwed right about now, but isn't there any way to undo the damage that has been done?

Ie: Can't I erase whatever info got hard-wired to my old hard drive and then have my old hard drive start fresh with my new hardware and with all my old settings intact and data?

If not - why not?

 
why can't you simply slave the old drive to recover whatever data you need from it? that seems like the easiest way to get your data back at this point.
 
Manually copying all the stuff I have and reinstalling it is a huge pain since I like using old versions of programs and I hate updating stuff just because it's new. I had a very niche configuration that took an extremely long time to set exactly how I want it. That kind of setup makes things very painstaking to redo one by one.

After making this thread I spent a few hours getting this Windows XP Pro interface to look and act like Windows 98 because the "default" XP look drives me nuts.

I suppose I should be a bit happy that at least I didn't lose all my data because I can manually copy the data files onto my new hard drive.

But it sure would be a godsend if one of you could tell me how to make my old hard drive boot.

 
If doing a repair install of XP on the old drive while it's in your old machine doesn't fix this problem, I don't think you have any other options now. If your WinXP install is such a niche configuration, your best bet then is to image the drive after you get everything the way you want it.

It's always risky and problematic like this to attempt a repair install when changing that much hardware.
 
I installed a fresh copy of Windows XP Pro on a brand new hard drive, but I can't boot into Windows at all with my old hard drive. Although I can still access the files on my old hard drive via the Windows install on my brand new hard drive.

Is there any way to run Sysprep on my old hard drive with this setup?
 
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