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Swapped Hard Drive Won't Boot

Discussion in 'Windows XP' started by chameleon, 2003/09/14.

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  1. 2003/09/14
    chameleon

    chameleon Inactive Thread Starter

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    I hate to border on double posting but......

    I posted a thread entitled Hard Drive How-To in the hardware forum.

    Issue now is not so much a hardware one but something like maybe an Windows issue????

    I have installed an XP boot drive into another formerly XP PC, custom box.

    Why in the world will the PC boot only from its original HD and not the one from the other PC? It just blue-screens every time.

    HD is being recognized on startup and then blue-screens when trying to load Windows.

    Is there something like writing a new boot sector to it in recovery console that i have to do or what???

    All jumpers are okay. System has no problem with the new slave and whatever is in it but the boot drive......no way!

    Okay....I'm a bit frazzled now.

    Can anyone help me with what I now believe is something other than a true hardware issue anymore???

    PLEASE?????

    Randy
     
    chameleon,
    #1
  2. 2003/09/14
    BillyBob Lifetime Subscription

    BillyBob Inactive

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    Very likely a Motherboard vs an already installed OS mis-match.

    Could be due to different BIOS or settings of same.

    Don't forget that the OS is installed using the Motherboard info.

    The two you are dealing with may be quite different.

    I had the same idea with two Win98 SE HDs. I wound up psysically installing the HD and booting to a floppy and re-installing Windows over itself. ANd sat back and watched it make lots of changes.

    BillyBob
     
    Last edited: 2003/09/14
    BillyBob,
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  4. 2003/09/14
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    I'm not at all sure that you can do that with XP - swap HD's with XP installs on them.

    When XP is first loaded it catalogues certain items of hardware on the PC and writes to a file. On subsequent boots it checks against that catalogue to ensure that the hardware is substantially unchanged. This is the basis of WPA - Windows Product Activation - for more info see
    http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.php

    I am guessing here, but I would not be surprised if an XP boot drive will only work in the PC in which the OS was originally installed. In any other PC the hardware catalogue will not match and a reformat/install is required. On the other hand it would be reasonable to expect the OS to ask for reactivation.

    I look forward to a definitive answer on this.
     
    PeteC,
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  5. 2003/09/14
    BillyBob Lifetime Subscription

    BillyBob Inactive

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    Again from my own experience with lower versions of Windows I do have to go along with whatPeteC wrote.

    Basic same idea ( MB vs OS mis-match ) as mine but better explained.

    That is one thing I am not looking foward to with XP.

    With all previous versions it was just a SIMPLE task of boot to a floppy and over install.

    BillyBob
     
    Last edited: 2003/09/14
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  6. 2003/09/14
    Ski52

    Ski52 Inactive

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    If you have a proprietary machine - Compaq, HP - some of the BIOS routines are stored on the HD on a hidden partition. No BIOS = No boot.

    Like PeteC says - XP gets angry when you change more than a couple of things, but I don't know if it would cause a no-boot situation, more than likely it wouldn't boot, but it would tell you to call home & re-activate.

    Good Luck
     
    Ski52,
    #5
  7. 2003/09/15
    chameleon

    chameleon Inactive Thread Starter

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    Gave Up

    Hi,

    Sorry for so late in posting back. Been a long day here.

    Okay, so I gave up the project. No way on Earth could I get the other drive to boot. I did check back earlier to this thread and saw all the opinions which I appreciated more than you know. :)

    Sometimes I just don't know why I think the things I do.

    Mind you, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

    Thanks to all of you who helped me out by posting. Thanks also to those who pondered.

    Sincerely,
    Randy
    (who might have discovered America, had he have lived in the late 1400s) :D
     
    chameleon,
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  8. 2003/09/15
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Chameleon,

    "To boldly go where no man has gone before" is the spice of life :)

    BB

    This reactivation business is no great problem - you can change a few things without the need to reactivate and if you havn't made any changes for 100 days (Ithink that's the figure) you can do a lot more. I recently reformatted and reinstalled XP and was able to reactivate via the internet.

    The link I posted is a good read on this.
     
    PeteC,
    #7
  9. 2003/09/15
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    Well, that would have been old news to us Vikings by then, 400-500 years or so ...... ;) ......

    Christer
     
    Christer,
    #8
  10. 2003/09/17
    Top Dog

    Top Dog Inactive

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    Top Dog,
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  11. 2003/09/17
    BillyBob Lifetime Subscription

    BillyBob Inactive

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    Just maybe ( I am guessing with XP ) but if you had just moved the drive and not allowed it to boot directly to the HD the first time and did an overtop install it may well have worked.

    Again I DO NOT know about this with XP but it worked with 98 ( twice ) and moving HDs from one machine to the other.

    The link that Top Dog pointed to looks like it just might be possible.

    BillyBob
     
    Last edited: 2003/09/17
    BillyBob,
    #10
  12. 2003/09/18
    Blackbird244

    Blackbird244 Inactive

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    I've seen this problem many times before. Haven't been around to post lately, so I'm sorry for the delay. Maybe it will help somebody else since you've given up the project.

    Your problem is that Windows NT5 (2000 + XP) gets set up with drivers specific to your motherboard chipset (in this case the IDE portion) and won't boot without these specific drivers installed. Even the generic ones are still pretty specific. Windows 9x is a lot more forgiving with this kind of thing, so there's proof that 98SE is superior to XP in some ways :)

    Microsoft has a solution listed in their knowledge base here for Windows XP:

    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314082

    And here for 2000:

    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;271965

    The only catch is that you need to do this *before* you swap out the drive or need to connect the drive to a mainboard with the same IDE chipset.

    Hope this helps somebody out,
    Chris
     
    Last edited: 2003/09/18
    Blackbird244,
    #11
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