Transferring a hard drive with OS already installed

Dr Bolouswki

Hi Folks

I sent a hard drive with XP already installed to my folks who live abroad and whose hard drive had failed. On boot it only goes as far as the windows startup menu and no further, regardless of choosing 'last known good config' or 'safe mode' or whatever. The OS was installed on an AMD 1800 and asus AV7X (I think is the board - don't have specs with me) and the machine its being put into is an AMD650 and a gateway board of some description. Anyway - my take on the situation is that I need to remove the IDE drivers in DOS and then when it boots it should be ok. Is this the right way to go about it? Or am I on the wrong track? ANyway, what I want to be able to do is ring them and just modify something over the phone so that it boots into XP - all the programs they use, internet settings etc are already set up and as they are not PC literate it would save loads of hassle if I could just get the thing to boot. IS the DOS idea a good one and if so does anyone know how to remove IDE drivers from XP in DOS mode?

ANy ideas gratefully appreciated.

maxheadroom

You've got a much bigger problem than that - chipset drivers, processor driver set, ACPI? Nightmare.


Ring them and talk them through a repair installation of XP, if they can install a hard drive, they should be able to manage it.

[edit] Damn keyboard gremlins... fixed typos

Capt'n Midnight

Short version - yes it is possible to tx P/2K HDD's - but only by someone technical at the PC.
- the nearest you will get is using sysprep (and an appropiate IDE inf file) - it will the boot up in the please enter your license screen - and even there is no guarantee it will sort it'self out. - Win98SE on the drive on the other hand would have chearfully popped up "Found new Hardware" messages and continued right on.....

http://www.hevanet.com/peace/microsoft.htm

b) Reduced Functionality: Hard disks cannot be moved. Windows XP, and Windows 2000, make it very difficult to move a hard drive to another computer. Microsoft has written Windows XP so that it cannot be easily moved to another computer. This article on Intel's web site describes the problem: Moving a Hard Drive to a New Motherboard [Intel.com]. The article says, "Moving a hard drive with Windows 2000 or Windows XP already installed to a new motherboard without reinstalling the operating system is not recommended." (This is a universal problem; Intel motherboards are only being used as an example.) Note that the problem is not just moving a hard drive to a new motherboard; the same problem is encountered when moving a copy of all software on a hard drive to a new motherboard. It is thus impossible to make functional backups. Instead, it is necessary to re-install the operating system and all the programs, progam updates, and security patches.

Note that the link in the intel article called "Microsoft's knowledge base article" is a dead link. The other link, the one in the sentence, "For additional information, please refer to these instructions from Microsoft", is also dead. This issue is apparently not seen as important by Intel; Intel will sell more computer hardware if hard drive software organization cannot be moved from one computer to another. (It is possible to find the Microsoft information, which merely describes the difficulty of moving a hard drive installation to another computer in more detail.)

Capt'n Midnight

Found this on John Simpson's site

Absolutely mind numbing

...Remove the machine's hard drive, mount it as a secondary drive in another machine with the same operating system, and read what you want that way. Note that if that operating system is made by Microsoft, it will leave markers that the drive was mounted elsewhere, and it may even make the drive un-bootable...

Dr Bolouswki

... I feel sick...

thanks for the assist posters... looks like I'm gonna have the joy of talking me ma through an entire new installation of XP, installing Office, setting internet settings etc etc....

God. Anyone gonna be in the bordeaux region in the next few weeks and wants to drop in? I'm sure they'll feed ya and they have a pool and stuff? Any takers?

Ah well....

maxheadroom

Killah - all you need to do is install and configure everythin here, send them the drive, then talk them through a repair installation. It should leave all the apps and data alone, but refresh the OS.

Capt'n Midnight

Set up a clean windows 98 SE install on a similar PC.

Preferrably in a different named folder to avoid conflicts
eg: WIDOWS / PROGRAMS (instead of windows and program files)

attrib *.* -r -a -s -h /s
Copy all the files on to a CD. (two step - xcopy /d /c /s in dos box
and then xcopy /s < \n in real dos \n is a text file with 10,000 lines each with the letter n)
make a win98 floppy and copy xcopy*.* on to it

They boot from the floppy - then xcopy /s everything from the CD to the HDD - sys the drive from the floppy - reboot .... (you can of course put all the commands in a batch file)

probably best to copy some drivers on the CD too...

Dr Bolouswki

Nice one - good thoughts all...

I'm gonna provide them with the disks, attempt a repair install first - if that fails... we can whip the horses eyes....