Tuner Not Found on Vista Media Center after swapping HDs

[cyberia]

I have an interesting problem. I swapped the hard drives on two (virtually) identical Dell PCs with Vista Premium. However, I ran into a snag.

In addition to swapping the HDs, I moved

1) a video card,
2) a Wi-Fi card and
3) an analog NTSC PCI tuner

to the new PC. Everything worked smoothly on the new PC except the TV tuner. The Wi-Fi card, the video card and all other files and settings worked flawlessly. However, the TV tuner would not work.

Windows Media Server Receiver Service kept stopping and I was getting a Tuner Not Detected error. Additionally, Vista was reporting a Digital Cable something-something error even though I never had a digital tuner.

I tried to install a USB tuner, but it would not work either. Vista Live TV functionality must not have liked that there was a hardware change on a pre-configured Media Center. It's gotta be a DRM-related issue.

Havs anyone run into anything like this?

 

[cyberia]

I tried the exercise again last night. Same results.

The hard drive swap works perfectly: the video card and the wireless card work, all settings and files are present... except for the d*mn Media Center. It does not want to recognize the TV tuner. So, it will not show Live TV and will not even play pre-recorded TV.

Is this done by Microsoft by design? It can't be a hardware problem. It has to be a software, Media Center-specific problem.