Problem booting into windows

[vonbismarck]

Hello all. My friend has an old Dell computer (it is running an i7 860) and is looking to upgrade his computer. He has a new, custom built one but the hard drive from the old computer won't boot into windows 7. It will start to boot (i.e. it will show the colored circles start to swirl) but then reboot. I tried using a copy of Windows 7 on a USB drive to repair the disc but it gives an error saying that it can't save something (my memory is a bit poor on the wording). If I run chkdsk it tells me there is an error in of the indexes ($I30 or something like that). He is able to boot into windows on his old computer. He does get a message saying that he should run chkdsk when he boots that computer up but skips it (he has run it before but he said that it doesn't finish). Is there anything that can be done to get this old hard drive working in the new computer?

Thank you all for any help you all might be able to provide.

 

[deustroop]

Give us a description of this new hardware. Win 7 is less than all-knowing and cannot run some newer tech.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Why would you think that you can just move a HDD containing a Windows 7 installation, to a new computer, without doing SYSPREP or similar?

And it sounds to me, like that HDD maybe be failing, if it was original OEM equipment on that i7-860 rig, hence wanting to run CHKDSK. Even if that completed successfully, Windows 7 will possibily BSOD, "Inaccessable Disk Failure", if you try to boot it on a dissimilar hardware system.

 

[Ketchup]

If you install the driver(s) for the chipset while the drive is in the old computer, you will have a better shot of this working. Do the same with the hard drive controller driver, if it's separate.

 

[vonbismarck]

Give us a description of this new hardware. Win 7 is less than all-knowing and cannot run some newer tech.

Hello. Thank you for reply. The new computer has a G4560 CPU with 8 GB of ram. No dedicated graphics (though he has one in the old computer). I can take my hard drive and run it just fine in he computer (which also have windows 7) so I am guessing that it being windows 7 isn't a problem.

Why would you think that you can just move a HDD containing a Windows 7 installation, to a new computer, without doing SYSPREP or similar?

And it sounds to me, like that HDD maybe be failing, if it was original OEM equipment on that i7-860 rig, hence wanting to run CHKDSK. Even if that completed successfully, Windows 7 will possibily BSOD, "Inaccessable Disk Failure", if you try to boot it on a dissimilar hardware system.

Hello and thank you as well for your reply. I can take my hard drive and put it in the new computer and it works fine. That is also what I did when I upgraded my computer and never had any problems. Now, my computers have been white box ones so I don't know if that has something to do with it. I have read that, at least in the past, Dell (and maybe others) have different verisons of the OS installed so that it looks for their specific hardware. I thought the hard drive was failing but was hoping there might be some way to save it. Should I take it that, aside from getting data off of the drive, there is no way to save it?

 

[Ketchup]

Simply put: the newer the hardware, the less likely an old operating system will support it without pre-installed drivers.

FYI- this is why it's easier to swap drives within the same brand name - they pre-install drivers for all hardware their current models use to simplify their processes.

 

[vonbismarck]

If you install the driver(s) for the chipset while the drive is in the old computer, you will have a better shot of this working. Do the same with the hard drive controller driver, if it's separate.

Hello and thank you for the reply. I will give this a try when next I can see his old computer. Is there anything else I should think to try, should that not work?

 

[deustroop]

Move anything he wants to save to your disk then clone your disk to his.