How mcuh can the computer change and the old harddrives stilll work?

In my humble 16 years of rebuilding hard drives and configuring OS's and
apps; I would say off the bat, not much of a chance, UNLESS the computer
you put the "C Drive" into is 95% exactly alike the computer which that
hard drive was previously installed in. Especially with windows XP. See,
WinXP installs a LOT of files which direct their attention to features
on the motherboard of the computer on which it is installed, and ALL
those motherboard files, such as North-bridge drivers, South-bridge
drivers (USB, IDE etc etc) are going to be strictly for the motherboard
that that C Drive was installed on. A lot of MBoard chips get configured
by WinXP upon installation, and they stay that way, and never change.
When you then try to take THAT hard drive into a different computer, and
attempt to bootup, the info on the hard drive wont match much if
anything at all, of the mother board in the computer which that drive
wasn't initially installed on.

IF you then take that C Drive and place it in a different computer, and
try to boot it up after attaching it and all.... what's MOST likely
going to happen, is windows will throw up a blue screen which may read
any number of errors, the most major one, and in the big picture, it
will basically say NO WAY MAN, I'm shutting down because my drivers
crashed with whatever is on this new motherboard. or, NO WAY General
Protection Fault "windows is shutting down to protect your computer from
damage" etc etc....

The motherboard drivers, and hardware drivers which are installed and
embedded on that hard drive do not jive with the needs of the
motherboard on the replacement/surrogate computer. Your best bet,
really, is to get a second computer which is as close to the old one as
possible, and have a C Drive in THAT new replacement computer having
windows XP already installed ON that new, replacement computer, and
SLAVE your old C Drive as a second drive in the new PC.

You can then take ALL of your programs personally created files and copy
(DO NOT MOVE THEM, COPY THEM) onto wherever you want them on the newer
replacement computer. Get copies of apps that you previously had, and
install them on the already present c drive on the second, replacement
computer. Once you have all the files copied onto the new machine, and
the programs toted over to the new C Drive of the replacement computer,
you can format the slaved old C Drive and you'll end up with basically a
refurbished version of the old PC, but in a different computer.

This way you wont have to deal with the hassle of the newer, replacement
computer rejecting the drivers and running OS files from the other c
drive from the previous PC. I have tried, and tried, and trust me, 90%
of the time, the transferred hard drive and OS on it, will reject the
computer you try to boot it up in, if it is not the original computer
which that hard drive was installed on.

I hope this reply was a timely reply, and not to an 8 week old request
lol....

Denny reBOOT.PCTech Cheers

On Thursday, February 20, 2014 2:03:17 AM UTC-5, denny. b. wrote:
In my humble 16 years of rebuilding hard drives and configuring OS's and

apps; I would say off the bat, not much of a chance, UNLESS the computer

you put the "C Drive" into is 95% exactly alike the computer which that

hard drive was previously installed in. Especially with windows XP. See,

WinXP installs a LOT of files which direct their attention to features

on the motherboard of the computer on which it is installed, and ALL

those motherboard files, such as North-bridge drivers, South-bridge

drivers (USB, IDE etc etc) are going to be strictly for the motherboard

that that C Drive was installed on. A lot of MBoard chips get configured

by WinXP upon installation, and they stay that way, and never change.

When you then try to take THAT hard drive into a different computer, and

attempt to bootup, the info on the hard drive wont match much if

anything at all, of the mother board in the computer which that drive

wasn't initially installed on.



IF you then take that C Drive and place it in a different computer, and

try to boot it up after attaching it and all.... what's MOST likely

going to happen, is windows will throw up a blue screen which may read

any number of errors, the most major one, and in the big picture, it

will basically say NO WAY MAN, I'm shutting down because my drivers

crashed with whatever is on this new motherboard. or, NO WAY General

Protection Fault "windows is shutting down to protect your computer from

damage" etc etc....



The motherboard drivers, and hardware drivers which are installed and

embedded on that hard drive do not jive with the needs of the

motherboard on the replacement/surrogate computer. Your best bet,

really, is to get a second computer which is as close to the old one as

possible, and have a C Drive in THAT new replacement computer having

windows XP already installed ON that new, replacement computer, and

SLAVE your old C Drive as a second drive in the new PC.



You can then take ALL of your programs personally created files and copy

(DO NOT MOVE THEM, COPY THEM) onto wherever you want them on the newer

replacement computer. Get copies of apps that you previously had, and

install them on the already present c drive on the second, replacement

computer. Once you have all the files copied onto the new machine, and

the programs toted over to the new C Drive of the replacement computer,

you can format the slaved old C Drive and you'll end up with basically a

refurbished version of the old PC, but in a different computer.



This way you wont have to deal with the hassle of the newer, replacement

computer rejecting the drivers and running OS files from the other c

drive from the previous PC. I have tried, and tried, and trust me, 90%

of the time, the transferred hard drive and OS on it, will reject the

computer you try to boot it up in, if it is not the original computer

which that hard drive was installed on.



I hope this reply was a timely reply, and not to an 8 week old request

lol....



Denny reBOOT.PCTech Cheers

Quick summary. If the motherboard chipset of the replacement motherboard is the same, or in the same family, odds are near 100% that the hard drive will boot with the replacement. To know what the same chipset families are, you gotta be a chiphead and read chipset specs.

Here is the exception which I ran into yesterday. The Precision 370 and PowerEdge SC420 motherboards are chipset compatible, but the PowerEdge SC420 BIOS does not support AHCI. The hard drive from the Precision 370 was set up with Win XP Pro with SP3 and AHCI enabled in the BIOS. I know, 'cause I set up the system for my client years ago, but the 370 board now has a blown capacitor after 10 years. So I tried booting the hard drive from the SC420 and got the predictable 7B BSOD. My only choice to save my client's expensive licensed software was to buy another Precision 370 motherboard. And I'll make the effort to change its service tag to match the original, so the expensive licensed software won't think it is on a different system and throw up and vomit... Ben Myers

On Thursday, February 20, 2014 2:03:17 AM UTC-5, denny. b. wrote:
In my humble 16 years of rebuilding hard drives and configuring OS's and

apps; I would say off the bat, not much of a chance, UNLESS the computer

you put the "C Drive" into is 95% exactly alike the computer which that

hard drive was previously installed in. Especially with windows XP. See,

WinXP installs a LOT of files which direct their attention to features

on the motherboard of the computer on which it is installed, and ALL

those motherboard files, such as North-bridge drivers, South-bridge

drivers (USB, IDE etc etc) are going to be strictly for the motherboard

that that C Drive was installed on. A lot of MBoard chips get configured

by WinXP upon installation, and they stay that way, and never change.

When you then try to take THAT hard drive into a different computer, and

attempt to bootup, the info on the hard drive wont match much if

anything at all, of the mother board in the computer which that drive

wasn't initially installed on.



IF you then take that C Drive and place it in a different computer, and

try to boot it up after attaching it and all.... what's MOST likely

going to happen, is windows will throw up a blue screen which may read

any number of errors, the most major one, and in the big picture, it

will basically say NO WAY MAN, I'm shutting down because my drivers

crashed with whatever is on this new motherboard. or, NO WAY General

Protection Fault "windows is shutting down to protect your computer from

damage" etc etc....



The motherboard drivers, and hardware drivers which are installed and

embedded on that hard drive do not jive with the needs of the

motherboard on the replacement/surrogate computer. Your best bet,

really, is to get a second computer which is as close to the old one as

possible, and have a C Drive in THAT new replacement computer having

windows XP already installed ON that new, replacement computer, and

SLAVE your old C Drive as a second drive in the new PC.



You can then take ALL of your programs personally created files and copy

(DO NOT MOVE THEM, COPY THEM) onto wherever you want them on the newer

replacement computer. Get copies of apps that you previously had, and

install them on the already present c drive on the second, replacement

computer. Once you have all the files copied onto the new machine, and

the programs toted over to the new C Drive of the replacement computer,

you can format the slaved old C Drive and you'll end up with basically a

refurbished version of the old PC, but in a different computer.



This way you wont have to deal with the hassle of the newer, replacement

computer rejecting the drivers and running OS files from the other c

drive from the previous PC. I have tried, and tried, and trust me, 90%

of the time, the transferred hard drive and OS on it, will reject the

computer you try to boot it up in, if it is not the original computer

which that hard drive was installed on.



I hope this reply was a timely reply, and not to an 8 week old request

lol....



Denny reBOOT.PCTech Cheers

"UNLESS the computer you put the "C Drive" into is 95% exactly alike the computer which that hard drive was previously installed in." Not precise enough... Ben

Based on very recent experience (yesterday), you can expect Windows 7 activation to complain if you switch motherboards, even with the same chipset and possibly with an identical motherboard. I replaced a Vostro 400 motherboard (bad CMOS-battery circuit, lost CMOS settings when unplugged) with one from an Inspiron 530, with the same Foxconn G33 chipset and overall design, and now Windows wants me to activate again.

You can avoid the activation problem if you use an identical motherboard model AND CHANGE THE SERVICE TAG. That way, Windows 7 does not know that you actually changed out the motherboard.

Now for a comment on the quality of the motherboards in the Vostro and Inspiron desktops. One word: cheap! Why? Because they use a generic Award BIOS, and the service tag cannot be changed. Or, at least, nobody knows how to do it, as far as I can tell. The physical construction looks OK. However, this is the first time I have ever seen a failed CMOS-clock circuit on a not-too-old motherboard, with the board unable to maintain CMOS settings and run the clock when system was unplugged. I tried 4 different CR2032 batteries with the same result, wondering whether I had bought a batch of defective batteries. This is a sign, if you need it, that the quality of Dell desktops for consumers (Inspiron) and small businesses (Vostro) has dropped way off from the days when the sturdy Dimensions ran rock solid for years and years... Ben

On Tue, 25 Feb 2014 12:44:23 -0800 (PST), Ben Myers
wrote:

Based on very recent experience (yesterday), you can expect Windows 7 activation to complain if you switch motherboards, even with the same chipset and possibly with an identical motherboard. I replaced a Vostro 400 motherboard (bad CMOS-battery circuit, lost CMOS settings when unplugged) with one from an Inspiron 530, with the same Foxconn G33 chipset and overall design, and now Windows wants me to activate again.

You can avoid the activation problem if you use an identical motherboard model AND CHANGE THE SERVICE TAG. That way, Windows 7 does not know that you actually changed out the motherboard.

Now for a comment on the quality of the motherboards in the Vostro and Inspiron desktops. One word: cheap! Why? Because they use a generic Award BIOS, and the service tag cannot be changed. Or, at least, nobody knows how to do it, as far as I can tell. The physical construction looks OK. However, this is the first time I have ever seen a failed CMOS-clock circuit on a not-too-old motherboard, with the board unable to maintain CMOS settings and run the clock when system was unplugged. I tried 4 different CR2032 batteries with the same result, wondering whether I had bought a batch of defective batteries. This is a sign, if you need it, that the quality of Dell desktops for consumers (Inspiron) and small businesses (Vostro) has dropped way off from the days when the sturdy Dimensions ran rock solid for years and years... Ben
Their "good" stuff may still be decent - but my experience with the
cheap (not necessarily inexpensive) consumer stuff is "the Dell from
Hell"

On Fri, 21 Feb 2014 22:04:05 -0800 (PST), Ben Myers
wrote:

Actually, I didnt' get the post that follows until Ben quoted it a day
later. I haven't missed nearly as many posts with Eternal-Sept. as I
did with Verizon and Erols when they had newsgroups and this is the
first one in months that I know I've missed.

On Thursday, February 20, 2014 2:03:17 AM UTC-5, denny. b. wrote:
In my humble 16 years of rebuilding hard drives and configuring OS's and

apps; I would say off the bat, not much of a chance, UNLESS the computer

you put the "C Drive" into is 95% exactly alike the computer which that

My OP was, on second look, long and tedious, and didn't say upfront that
the original and the 2 possible replacements were Dell Dimension 4400's.

So indeed I think they were 95% exactly alike.

The new one had a faster CPU, but that doesn't matter.

And even though it was faster, I think it might have been older, because
it still had a fan attached to the CPU heat sink. The original broken
computer had a shroud with a larger fan at the output of the shroud near
the rear of the case. I would assume that design came later. But
that doesn't matter either.

Anyhow, the change went without a hitch, generating no requests for
drivers or reactivation. More details in another post in this thread.

Micky



hard drive was previously installed in. Especially with windows XP. See,

WinXP installs a LOT of files which direct their attention to features

on the motherboard of the computer on which it is installed, and ALL

those motherboard files, such as North-bridge drivers, South-bridge

drivers (USB, IDE etc etc) are going to be strictly for the motherboard

that that C Drive was installed on. A lot of MBoard chips get configured

by WinXP upon installation, and they stay that way, and never change.

When you then try to take THAT hard drive into a different computer, and

attempt to bootup, the info on the hard drive wont match much if

anything at all, of the mother board in the computer which that drive

wasn't initially installed on.



IF you then take that C Drive and place it in a different computer, and

try to boot it up after attaching it and all.... what's MOST likely

going to happen, is windows will throw up a blue screen which may read

any number of errors, the most major one, and in the big picture, it

will basically say NO WAY MAN, I'm shutting down because my drivers

crashed with whatever is on this new motherboard. or, NO WAY General

Protection Fault "windows is shutting down to protect your computer from

damage" etc etc....



The motherboard drivers, and hardware drivers which are installed and

embedded on that hard drive do not jive with the needs of the

motherboard on the replacement/surrogate computer. Your best bet,

really, is to get a second computer which is as close to the old one as

possible, and have a C Drive in THAT new replacement computer having

windows XP already installed ON that new, replacement computer, and

SLAVE your old C Drive as a second drive in the new PC.



You can then take ALL of your programs personally created files and copy

(DO NOT MOVE THEM, COPY THEM) onto wherever you want them on the newer

replacement computer. Get copies of apps that you previously had, and

install them on the already present c drive on the second, replacement

computer. Once you have all the files copied onto the new machine, and

the programs toted over to the new C Drive of the replacement computer,

you can format the slaved old C Drive and you'll end up with basically a

refurbished version of the old PC, but in a different computer.



This way you wont have to deal with the hassle of the newer, replacement

computer rejecting the drivers and running OS files from the other c

drive from the previous PC. I have tried, and tried, and trust me, 90%

of the time, the transferred hard drive and OS on it, will reject the

computer you try to boot it up in, if it is not the original computer

which that hard drive was installed on.



I hope this reply was a timely reply, and not to an 8 week old request

lol....



Denny reBOOT.PCTech Cheers

"UNLESS the computer you put the "C Drive" into is 95% exactly alike the computer which that hard drive was previously installed in." Not precise enough... Ben