switching hard drives Q help

Will try to make a long question a short one , and keep to facts . I'm trying to switch one hd to another desktop.Its been up and running and has my set up on and is xp.I,ve
taken the old hd out of another running system. But now it will not boot with the newer hd .Tried to switch boot setup to no avail .. older system was a home built with a tank intel 850*** MB and still running some how ..Have been useing it as a back up. Bought a little newer sys, from work auction for 20 bucks it has the western drive it came with worked fine ,,, just did't want to take a bunch of time setting up the newer one. the newr hd is a seagate Its larger too.So I really wanted to use it '

Hoped to not get into a lot ot time sorting it out ,, Any suggestions
how to get it to boot ? or some setting I need to check ? seem to have a very limited bios , And I,m far from pro going in there !
The so called newer system is a compaq evo D510,, 2.4 ,,2 gigs
Any one have a system recover disc ? or boot .

any help appeciated ron

 

When Windows is initially installed, it tweaks the registry, drivers and license code to match the motherboard of the system it was originally installed on.

If you move the drive to another PC and attempt to boot from it, you'll have issues like the ones you're describing.

You basically have two options:

* Reinstall the old drive in the D510 as the Windows boot drive. Backup the files off the second drive, reformat it and use it as an additional storage drive.

* Backup up the data on the second drive, reformat it and reload Windows. If you do not have the D510 restore CD/DVD, you'll either have to order one from Compaq or purchase a new copy/license of Windows.

Hope this helps.

 

thanks gman ..Looks like thats what I'll have do ,Ill at least have the extra storage .I guess I need to set one master then other slave with jumpers ?

 

Greetings, nitromeg...

Yes, Master and Slave jumpers should be set - the Cable Select configuration should be avoided if possible...