Hard Drive in NEW Computer

desooperdesooper
edited December 2005 in Hardware
I need your help PLEASE, I want to buy a new computer but heres my thing, if I buy a new computer can I use my Microsoft XP Home disk to install on a new computer seeing how I have used it on my computer I have now, or Can I take my hard drive out and put it in my NEW computer and if so what will happen if I reformatt the drive will I still be able to install my XP Home again, Thank you all for your help.

Comments

  • madmatmadmat
    edited December 2005
    If you're only using it on one PC at a time it doesn't really matter. You can activate XP as many times as you take a fancy to as long as it's legit and on one PC and one only.

    This applies to retail, the OEM version they might let you activate more than once then again, they might not.
  • desooperdesooper
    edited December 2005
    madmat wrote:
    If you're only using it on one PC at a time it doesn't really matter. You can activate XP as many times as you take a fancy to as long as it's legit and on one PC and one only.

    This applies to retail, the OEM version they might let you activate more than once then again, they might not.

    yes retail, and Can I take the hard drive out of my old computer and install it on my new one , I guess what I am asking is just pull the drive out already formatted and working, just install it on the new computer, thanks so much for your help.
  • DonutDonut Maine New
    edited December 2005
    Yes the drive can be transferred from old computer to your new one. BUT, Windows may or may not run. I've done it with similar hardware configs. and not had a problem. (nf-2 chipset to another rig with an nf-2 chipset)

    What are the specs on the two comps?
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited December 2005
    I've had a pretty good success rate with swiching motherboards out with both XP and Win2K Pro, with a success rate probably in excess of 80%. If you do this though, I recommend that you uninstall any chipset-specific drivers and/or lan-specific drivers and let windows boot up in the new system. I would also uninstall any video drivers too and reinstall them again after you have the new mobo drivers installed after getting the old hard drive up and running in the new box.

    On the few times I haven't had a successful trnansplant, I have done a new overlay install of the OS directly over the old install, which will clean out the registry. Your old programs will still be on the hard drive, but windows won't know that they are there so you will have to run the install of the programs again to get them correctly entered into the registry so that they will work properly. I also had 1 time where this didn't work and ended up having to completely wipe the hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch.
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited December 2005
    The main problem I found with switching HDs from Comp to comp is that every now and than you get a nice driver error, but usually you can cover it up or just go in a eliminate the problem driver.

    But it should work for you if the MOBO’s have some similarities..... you will run into problems if they are completely different, like a N-force2 to a N-force4 SLI... that combo I have had problems with allot.
  • desooperdesooper
    edited December 2005
    Sledgehammer70 wrote:
    The main problem I found with switching HDs from Comp to comp is that every now and than you get a nice driver error, but usually you can cover it up or just go in a eliminate the problem driver.

    But it should work for you if the MOBO’s have some similarities..... you will run into problems if they are completely different, like a N-force2 to a N-force4 SLI... that combo I have had problems with allot.


    Thanks for all your help.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited December 2005
    A technique which has worked for me is to boot up in Safe Mode on the old computer, then uninstall everything in Device Manager. Make sure you click View>>>Show Hidden Devices so you get them all.

    Then shutdown the computer - do not reboot or you've just wasted your time! ;)

    Do the HD transplant, but make sure you boot directly from the WinXP CD and do a Repair Install. If you need advice on doing that, just yell.

    I've had great success using this method. Chances are that all your data will be right where you left it and that all your programs will still work. As always, make sure you back up anything you care about first - just in case. :)
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