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    Harddrive Swap Question

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Jaycee8980, Sep 25, 2008.

  1. Jaycee8980

    Jaycee8980 Notebook Deity

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    I have a HDD with XP and all my applications already loaded on it. I own the XP license. If I just swap it into my new computer would it work correctly. The OS and the applications? I dont see why it wouldnt I am just curious.
     
    Jaycee8980, Sep 25, 2008
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  2. swarmer

    swarmer beep beep

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    No, because all the drivers are for the components in your old computer.
     
    swarmer, Sep 25, 2008
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  3. Jaycee8980

    Jaycee8980 Notebook Deity

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    So your saying that the OS wont even boot? Or are you saying I wont have use for some of my components such as the webcam, Wi-fi card etc.
     
    Jaycee8980, Sep 25, 2008
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  4. gerryf19

    gerryf19 I am the walrus

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    It will not even boot. It's like a drunk waking up in the wrong house. It bounces of he walls in a blind panic and then rolls over and passes out.

    You can sometimes--sometimes--take a harddrive from one computer and put it in another and if you run a windows repair before it ever loads it will often work, but not 100 percent of the time.

    The repair has to be attempted before Windows tries to load after the drive is in its new home--once the hardware hive of registry tries to load in the wrong PC the chances of success go does because the registry becomes corrupt.
     
    gerryf19, Sep 25, 2008
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  5. Spare Tire

    Spare Tire Notebook Evangelist

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    I've swapped an HDD from an AMD (nvidia chipset) system to an Intel (intel chipset) system before. It did boot up, detect new hardware, install drivers, reboot. The OS did get pretty dirty with all residual drivers and sometimes windows can't find components that are not there anymore and panics. But it was "functionnal".
     
    Spare Tire, Sep 25, 2008
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  6. Andy

    Andy Notebook Prophet

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    You can try booting in safe mode, as minimal drivers will be initialised. In some cases, you may get a BSOD, if the chipset is different, hence the chipset driver is different, so the Storage controller driver will be different, so you'll probably get a 0x00000007B BSOD. I got it, when I used an HDD with the 943GML chipset driver in a Santa Rosa notebook.

    Workaround, Run XP Repair > Might ask for serial > Might screw up if the original serial was an OEM.
     
    Andy, Sep 25, 2008
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  7. gerryf19

    gerryf19 I am the walrus

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    Really Spare Tire? Windows xp? Windows 95/98/me would do this, but I have never seen a Windows XP machine do it.

    Shoot, I don't even think it's possible given WGA and product activation.

    Tell me more. I'd like to know the motherboards of these two machines because I don't believe what you are saying is possible
     
    gerryf19, Sep 25, 2008
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  8. Spare Tire

    Spare Tire Notebook Evangelist

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    It was an asus M2NPV-VM to an asus P5B-VM. In win XP yeah.
    As for windows activation... hehehe.
     
    Spare Tire, Sep 26, 2008
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