New PC, wanting to make my old HD the master drive ...

... is it possible?

I heard somewhere that when you get a new PC of a different make(my old PC was an HP, while the new one's a Gateway) you can't put the HD you had with your old PC as the master drive for your new PC, due to the BIOS information and such.

Is this true?
Shall I have to suffer through re-installing everything(even though all my stuff is in the old drive, my system doesn't technically have any of it installed because none of it's on the master drive) or is it possible for me to, somehow, set my old drive as the master?

Someone suggested elsewhere that I try it, they said that it had worked fine for them in the past. I tried it out, I started it with the old HD set as the master and the new one set as slave.

It got so far as the screen DIRECTLY before the "Windows XP" loading screen appears, and then it flashes a really fast BSOD(seemingly half a second) and reboots. It just loops like that until I restart it with the new drive as master.

Any thoughts?
Thanks!

Also, I apologize if this has been asked already, but I couldn't find anything this specific in the search.

 

if u know how to whipe the hd clean do it man cuz its gonna have ur old crap on it.SO this is what i did it oook the drive put xp to install deleted it and took the cd out so it had nothing on it now.yy do u have it as ur main hdd i mean thats wierd cuz ur other hd would have ur windows and such just make ur slave cuz u dont need windwos on a slave


aim volumeone0686
xfire t0mdel0nge

if u need me

i never check back on forums

 

The reason the new pc won't boot with your old HD is probably that the original installation of XP on your old drive was set up for whatever hadware was present in your old machine, and the hardware in the new pc is significantly different.
What you could do is to set the old HD as slave, and access all the files that are on it. Once you have got your pc running with a fresh installation of XP on the new drive, you could delete the windows folders that contain the original operating system from the old drive.

 

also you can do the ole files and settings transfer wizard, then after you get what you want you can safely format your old HD and it will be clean and off you go
Jaza

 

Jazagod & volumeone0686> That's the thing ... I'm trying to get my computer to run off my old HD WITH all my files intact. The reason I even want to have that drive as a master is so I don't have to reinstall all of my programs to use them. If a master drive becomes a slave, the path settings in all the programs still think it's on the C: drive so they get screwed up and won't work unless you reinstall them.

12quidkidinnit> This sounds easy enough. So basically I just delete all of the Windows folders/files off my old HD while it's a slave, and then reboot with that drive as master?

I'm assuming that without the Windows folders, it'll try to reinstall them? I hope it won't format the whole drive, though ... because that'd destroy my whole plan.

 

Bump!
If bumping's allowed, that is.

 

So nobody knows at all?

Egads, it must be harder than I thought

 

I do not have the time tonite to go into a long drawn out scenario, but I would start with suggesting that you try just booting from your "Old" HD with the new one disconnected completely and see if that works, the short explanation could be that you have two OS's one on the slave and one on the "Old" HD and there is a conflict. Try that and see what happens, then post back Hope that Helps its ZZZzzzzz time

 

Man, I was SURE this would work, because I hadn't thought to try it until now.
I unplugged the main HD for this system and booted up with just my old one, only to see the same results, sadly. I tried changing the jumpers and everything, but it didn't help any.

 

Sorry to tell you this, but I think you need to just bite the bullet and reload everything. I know it sucks but it's about the only thing I could think of. Look at it this way, it gives you a chance to only reload the programs you use instead of ones that just take up space.

 

Great find Tim, have you tried this one yourself??? would take some time, but great find Bookmarked

 

Alright, then. I guess I can accept this and move on with my life
Great program link, by the way!! It works great with alot of my apps, but sadly not my games.

That's alright, though, that just reduces the amount of reinstalling I need to by a huge amount.

Thanks a ton!