possible hard drive issue

Ok, so last night i took apart a computer for the first time. it went well i switched PSU from one to another and it worked fine, then i got carried away and one thing led to another and i took my hard drive(random old dell) out. i then put it in a different computer(old hp pavilion a000) and tried to boot it up, it gave me a blue screen, so i put it back in the dell then it wont boot, i am probably just an idiot but what could be the problem did i screw up my hard drive?

 

What exactly happens now with the old dell back in the original computer? Does it try to start Windows and give you a blue screen or is it not recognized at all and leave you on a BIOS screen?

If it isn't recognized just double check your cables are properly connected.

 

it goes through the bios and then leaves me at a black screen with a flashing "-" at the top, i think i just corrupted the hard drive

 

Yes, it's possible Windows was trying to make changes because it saw that it was attached to a different hardware configuration. Is it XP? Do you have an XP disk?

Not sure how old the computer is but any chance you left a floppy in the floppy bay?

 

it is xp and there might be a disk

 

From Dell to HP might well cause an "identity crisis" because of the different hardware used by each.
Dell is(or was) highly proprietary.

 

i dont really care im getting a new computer anyway but hypothetically speaking i could go buy a new Hard Drive pop it in and run a new OS on it and it should be fine?

 

If, as you stated, you have a good disk and the key for it, then yes it should be OK.

 

The hard drive would not be damaged by putting it in the HP. The operating system may have been messed up if it tried to rewrite hal.dll to reflect the changes to the hardware.

If you have an XP disk you can just reinstall on the hard drive if you don't care about the files already on the drive.