Hi, Baba.
A HDD with WinXP preinstalled? That's a new one on me! Setup detects the
hardware configuration and customizes WinXP to fit the environment that it
finds. When the HD is moved to a different environment, Setup must be
allowed to run again to re-customize WinXP to fit the new infrastructure.
To WinXP, there's little difference between moving its HD into a new
computer and keeping its HD while changing the motherboard/CPU/chipset.
Either way, Setup has to start over, redetect the hardware, and reconfigure
WinXP.
Your best bet is probably to install your new drive as slave or secondary.
Then boot from the WinXP CD-ROM and follow Microsoft's instructions for an
"in-place upgrade":
How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q315341
As the article says, this is not intended as a timesaver; it will take about
as long as a fresh installation. It should preserve all or most of your
installed applications on that drive, although you may need to correct drive
letters in the new configuration. You should visit Windows Update as soon
as you get back online to be sure you have all SPs and other fixes. But
Setup should detect the existing Win2K and automatically configure your
system to dual boot, including replacing the Win2K versions of the system
files with WinXP versions.
If the partition on your new drive is marked Active (bootable), Setup might
get confused as to which drive is Drive C:. Boot into Win2K and use Disk
Management to check this after you plug in the new drive and before you run
WinXP Setup. You want only a single Active partition when you run Setup.
RC
