Removing a master harddrive and putting it into another pc

[BBock727]

My brother and my father share my brothers computer but the split in pc time isn't working out. My brother bought another harddrive and I clean installed windows on it for his pc. The old harddrive which is also a bootdrive has a lot of my fathers work stuff on it. I planned on taking that harddrive and putting it in my old pc which has everything but a harddrive in it. (I built a new one a year ago). I am having issues with windows booting. XP goes to boot and then flashes a blue screen for a quick second and restarts. The safemode selection screen comes up saying something about new hardware configurations.

What can I do to get this computer working without reformating the harddrive. I understand that all the drivers currently installed on that harddrive are for a completely different computer. I didnt get far in safemode because I dont have a ps/2 mouse only USB.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Vincent]

Read here:

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2275658&enterthread=y

Good luck

 

[JackMDS]

If one needs the capacity to move/copy installation to another computer/drive more than one time in life.

It is Not Free, but the Most Countable way is to get Acronis Echo Workstation with the Universal Restore Module (around $100).

You use the Echo Boot CD to backup the Drive to a tib file on another drive.

Then boot the other PC with the CD and install the backup on the "New" computer.

When installing with the Universal option of Echo knows how to strip out all the hardware specific drivers and leave it with the default Windows installation drivers.

Once you boot the computer Windows would start and install its native drivers for the new installation.

In many cases at the end of the boot you would get almost clean Device Management. In most cases when it is Not clean the drivers that need to be updated are, Audio, NIC, and special Video.

Update the drivers and you have a perfect copy of the original installation with all the applications and files intact.

This process works well with all variants of Windows including Win 7.

http://www.acronis.com/enterpr...universal-restore.html

Please Note that when moved/copy you probably would need to Reactivate Windows.

If it does Not work through the Auto Activation call the 800 number if your explanation to the move/copy is reasonable you would get Manual Reactivation.