Any Computer Gurus here? hard drive issue
 

Here is the issue. I took out my hard drive in my computer and trying to swap it in my friends computer. my hard drive in my friends computer will not boot, but it is perfectly fine in my computer. What happens is when I put my hard drive in my friends computer and try to boot it, it will start to boot and in the process of booting there is a blue sceen with somthing that appears but the computer re-boots way too fast for me to even read what is on the blue screen. my hard drive has win XP on it and on the computer in which im trying to put my hard drive in was also running win XP.

TRY setting your dive as a D in his cp not as a C . use his as a C

Uhhhh... you can't just take a computers HD and swap it in to another system.

There are drivers there for the HD controller, chipsets, and a bunch of other devices that are probably on your computer but not on your friends.

Why exactly are you trying to do this?

In any case, you can't do what you're trying... it just won't work

Yeah, you can't just switch primary harddrives and expect it to boot like normal. Now you could add one of the drives to one of the computers as a slave drive and get access to what is on it. But, if his simply won't boot then there is obviously a problem with it and it probably won't even operate correctly as a slave.

Also, his harddrive boots as a master on your PC or as a slave? It shouldn't be able to boot as the master drive on your computer. I'm asking since you didn't explain.

ok here is what im trying to do. My friend gave me his computer which is alot faster than mine. Im trying to keep all my data and use his CPU since it is faster. My hard drive is alot bigger than his. Im just trying to take out my hard drive from my computer and replacing it in his computer and getting rid of his hard drive.

I cant boot my friends computer after i have put my hard drive in it and then gettting it to boot. Im not using his hard drive at all in his computer, ive fully disconnected it. this is the problem im facing.

Should I just set my hard drive as slave and keep the existing hard drive in his computer as master and try booting it that way, how would that work both hard drives contain WIN XP on them, will this work?

thanks

Yes it would (should) boot from the primary master. As Jordy said you simply CAN NOT switch hard drives between two computers these days. Your only option is to copy the data from one hard drive to the other and then format your hard drive and copy the data back.

actually i have interchanged a harddrive before..on two very dif computers..don't understand how or why ti worked..prolly because they both used the same style of chipset for most of the built on components. but ya..copy stuff from one drive..format , re-install , then copy back ;) it's the easiest way.

Then you got lucky.... same chipsets made it easy but 9 times out of 10 that won't work. :smilie_da

oh i know i got lucky, but it's handy to just put my harddrive in it when i want.

what should I do now, how should I install my HD I dont want to erase all the data nor do I want to burn everything to CD, is there any way of doing it without erasing anything or copying anything.

then you can move your SH*T to the C hdas a file or keep as a 2nd drive

how do i set my drive as D: in his computer with his being C:
Do I do this in BIOS and change drive letter?

thanks

I have XP on my HD aswell can it be hooked up as a slave and still be able to run in that way?

you will need to reinstall xp becouse it is set up to look for your old set up

Re:
 

It is possible to take one drive from one machine and install it into the other. It will need to be pinned as a Master, you will need to change the BIOS to read the new drive, then you would need to install all the new drivers for all the different hardware, the remove all the old drivers for the old hardware. A re-install of the OS maybe needed but you won't necessarily loose everything, if you do a 'Repair' installation of the OS, it will just fix and reinstall the OS files and should not touch your data, wise to make a backup before hand.

Not the quickest or cleanest method but it is do-able. The first time it boots up you will get an endless line of "New Hardware found".

See... now you're making it a bit too compliated. The guy is obviously a bit of a novice, so I didn't want to lay that scenario out for him... :D

Anyways, you've got it a bit mixed up......

You can't just put the new drive in, have it boot, and then start adding/removing drivers. Reason being that if you don't have the proper chipset/hd controller drivers on the drive it just won't ever boot up for you. (yes, even in safe mode)

The best/easiest way that I've found to do it is go to in to device manager and remove all the devices on the old machine before bringing the drive in to the new system.

Then once you get it in to the new system it will start to add new hardware as you suggested.

There are still instances where even this method won't work though :(

Just make sure the jumpers are set up properly.

Also if your using your drive as a spare drive on his comp, doesn't matter what ide controller he has or anything but if your booting off of yours in his computer, then it matters.

This method is fast and simple if you have an XP install CD.

All PC's now have primary and secondary channels on the IDE controller. If you plug your HD into the secondary channel it will still be readable without any conflict over the jumper settings. The system should recognize the new drive and assign it a drive letter as soon as it boots up. Once you have copied any data from your drive to his, fdisk and re-format your drive, remove both from the system, and plug your drive into the primary channel and his into the secondary channel. Run the install CD to load a fresh copy of XP onto your drive, thereby loading all the correct drivers etc.

Now you should be able to copy any file from his drive to yours without any trouble, and run the system as you wanted to.

Don't forget to D/L and install any updates (especially the security patches...:stroke: ) from MS that have been released since the install disc was created.

HTH