Swap Harddrives?help!!

Topic: Can i swap my harddrive with Windows XP to a whole different computer?

Hi, I want to swap my harddrive from my old computer to my new computer. I heard that you cannot do that becuase it will not detect it. Is it true? or will windows detect the new hardware changes and reinstall everything.

 

Yes you can generally speaking, but you won't be able to use Windows/Microsoft Update anymore and it (Windows) will probably ask you to register your software again as your hardware configuration will have changed dramatically. We are talking Microsoft here, lots of strings attached. Give them a call, explain what you want to do. I am presently working toward throwing of that yolk though, as Mr. William Gates and Company have received more than their fair share of my hard earned legal tender to date.
Bug

 

I think legally you can change once. I can't remember if XP (OEM) is coded to the motherboard, but if you have trouble, call MS and tell them what you are doing and see if you can reregister it. As an alternative, if that doesn't work, you could get a new hard drive and hook up your old one as a second hard drive.
abri

 

No no no. Check your sources folks.

Read my response here.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=133108

 

Hi Sleepy Choco!

Here's a more thorough discussion about what you would like to do. I found it helpful:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html#3

about halfway down the page it tells you come to:

"Moving a hard drive with a currently running XP installed to another computer. "

but I found the whole website had some interesting things to say about these issues.

abri

 

abri, this is what I was saying all along

 

yes and no, because it shows you how to do it ... I think ...
using a repair cd ... but ... hmmmm ... will go read it again

abri