Swopping HDD's between 2 P.C.s

  • Thread starter Thread starter Andrew
  • Start date Start date
A

Andrew

I have 2 p.c's, one with XP on a SATA HDD and one with
WinME on an EIDE HDD. I would like to swop the two
drives over, however, when I tried a straight forward
swop I couldn't get the "new" machine with XP to boot.
When I placed the HDD's back into their original machines
they both booted without problems. Can anyone advise on
the best way I can achieve the swop-over?
 
That is "swapping" and not "swopping"

XP has a new feature: product activation. This feature "locks" the
installed version of XP to a specify PC, based on the hardware components
installed in the PC, mainly the motherboard. If XP can not find the "same"
principle components, XP considers itself as a second copy and refuses to
start normally.
 
Hello

Well if your going to try that both pc's must have
the same computer devices, or else it will not work

alvin
 
Are both motherboards the same (or almost , like Asus A7V8X-X and A7v8X-X
deluxe)? Is all hardware the same? Can both take SATA drives (obviously the
other can). If not, forget it.


--
Tumppi
Reply to group
=================================================
Most learned here on nntp://news.mircosoft.com
Helsinki, Finland (remove NO _SPAM)
(translations from FI/SE not always accurate)
=================================================
 
Greetings --

Normally, and assuming a retail license (many OEM licenses are not
transferable to a new motherboard), unless your motherboard is
virtually identical (same chipset, same IDE controllers, same BIOS
version, etc.) to the one on which the other WinXP installation was
originally performed, you'll need to perform a repair (a.k.a. in-place
upgrade) installation, at the very least:

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=KB;EN-US;Q315341

As always when undertaking such a significant change, back up any
important data before starting.

This will also require re-activation, unless you have a Volume
Licensed version of WinXP Pro installed. If it's been more than 120
days since you last activated that specific Product Key, you'll most
likely be able to activate via the internet without problem. If it's
been less, you might have to make a 5 minute phone call.


Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:




You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH
 
I agree with Bruce. A repair install should rebuild a new Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL)
 
I have 2 p.c's, one with XP on a SATA HDD and one with
WinME on an EIDE HDD. I would like to swop the two
drives over, however, when I tried a straight forward
swop I couldn't get the "new" machine with XP to boot.
When I placed the HDD's back into their original machines
they both booted without problems. Can anyone advise on
the best way I can achieve the swop-over?
Click to expand...

Run SYSPREP to remove the driver information before swapping HDs
between different computers, this will force XP to redetect all the
hardware (its in Deploy.cab on XP CD).

Peter Hutchison
Windows FAQ
http://www.pcguru.plus.com/
 
Back
Top