jimmyd Posted November 13, 2004 Report Share Posted November 13, 2004 Hi everyone, Can a person load an OS (win. XP or 2K) on a new Hdd on one machine and then put that HDD in another ( different) machine and get that machine to boot and operate ? If so what's to proper way to do it ? Thank's in advance for any reply's. jimmy Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mikex Posted November 13, 2004 Report Share Posted November 13, 2004 Possible, but may get issues with hardware differences. Motherboard, monitor, and cdrom etc.Try it don't think it will cause major problems. Hdd will have drivers for both machines installed as the machine boots. M Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jimmyd Posted November 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 13, 2004 Mikez, I'll give it a try this afternoon and see what happens. jimmy Quote Link to post Share on other sites
tenmm Posted November 13, 2004 Report Share Posted November 13, 2004 Mikez, I'll give it a try this afternoon and see what happens. jimmy Mikex is right the hardware differences will be enough to cause problems with the OS.You might get it to work with a little tweaking but I do not think it will be worth the effort.I tried this awhile back with 98se and could not get it to work well on both PC's. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jimmyd Posted November 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 13, 2004 Thank's tenmm, when you tried it, did it damage the HDD? jimmy Quote Link to post Share on other sites
martymas Posted November 13, 2004 Report Share Posted November 13, 2004 yes the motherboard has to be compatable.for example is you took the hdd from a p2 to a p3 it wont work.i found out ,at that time and i didnt know what the problem was we had to clean swipe the hdd and start all over again.with a reinstalation.so if your hardware is from one sys to another you up the creek with a paddlei learned a lesson from that marty i know it didnt hurt my hdd i had to go on the net and find a hdd swiper i thnk it was called erasure or somthing like that quite quite while ago now marty. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
tenmm Posted November 13, 2004 Report Share Posted November 13, 2004 Thank's tenmm, when you tried it, did it damage the HDD? jimmy No.It hurt nothing, other than when I cut myself on a metal spur on one of the cases while I was moving the hard drive Quote Link to post Share on other sites
martymas Posted November 13, 2004 Report Share Posted November 13, 2004 ha ha ha hey tenmmi hope you didnt have to put your finger in a sling.great sense of humor marty Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jimmyd Posted November 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 13, 2004 Well, I tried it and NO go. Couldn't get anything up to try to work with. Havent re-installed the HDD to check it yet. I'll just reformat it and let it go at that. Jimmy Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BurtStark Posted November 14, 2004 Report Share Posted November 14, 2004 Your best bet to pull this off would be to go into your device manager and uninstall all motherboard-related devices prior to doing the swap. The devices you want to uninstall are all listed under 'System Devices' and 'Universal Serial Bus controllers.' Remove each device, one at a time and do not restart when promted. Once you've uninstalled each device, shut down the computer, and install the hard drive into the other machine. When you boot up for the first time, the operating system should recognize the new motherboard, and install generic system drivers that should allow you to boot up. Once it's booted, install the proper drivers for the computer's motherboard. If you don't have them on disk, you can get them from the manufacturer's website. It's important that you do this last step. The computer will likely be unstable if you contunue to run it with the generic microsoft drivers.I can't be 100% sure this will work in your case, but I've done this serveral times with different computers, and it always worked for me. Good luck. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ghorjus Posted November 14, 2004 Report Share Posted November 14, 2004 i would suggest what BurtStark said.and installing the OS without any hardwares attached as well,such as soundcards etc.also, i thought Mobos come with their own CD with drivers on it.if you have keep it within reach when you reinstall the HD, Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jimmyd Posted November 14, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 14, 2004 BurtStark & ghorjus That sound's really logical . Glance at my proposed (adjusted) procedure and see if I'm correct. Remove parent HDD Install new HDD Load OS, reboot after OS install and Remove Device's, shutdown and remove HDD. Install new HDD in machine in ques. and boot-up, load required drivers. Does this sound correct ? Thank's for your reply's. jimmy Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BurtStark Posted November 14, 2004 Report Share Posted November 14, 2004 Yes, that sounds correct, but I have to wonder: if you're dong a new install anyway, why not just do it on the machine that you want to use the hard drive on? I'm guessing there must be some reason. If it's because the other PC doesn't have a CD-ROM drive, I'd just borrow one from the first machine to make the installation. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jimmyd Posted November 14, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 14, 2004 BurtStark, well it all began by my sister inlaw's HDD dying. She live's in another state and I was going to give her a HDD & OS to install in her computer. Also I wanted to know if/how it could be done???? jimmy P.S. Didn't want to give her the CD. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BurtStark Posted November 14, 2004 Report Share Posted November 14, 2004 I figured there had to be a good reason. Thanks for satisfying my curiosity.Just wanted to add: If you're going to be using Windows XP, your sister-in-law may run into an issue with activating it. If she's going to activate it with her own XP product key, she should be able to activate it, but she still may be prompted to call Microsoft to do so. If you're trying to use the same product key on both computers, you may run into trouble. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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