swapping hd=problems

[tC_Crazy]

Hey all. I recently acquired a Dell Dimension 2400 from a friend. It had a more powerful processor than my old eMachines computer, so I decided to swap the hard drive from my old comp to this new one. The old HD has Windows XP Home installed, as well as an old, nonfunctional XP Pro (long story, the comp is on dual-boot but only Home runs). It runs very well on the old eMachines. So when I swapped the old HD into the new Dell computer, and tried to boot up I had problems. The BIOS recognizes the HD, and I get to the boot menu. I select Windows XP Home and press enter. However, instead of starting XP, the computer just restarts. The next time I try to do this, I get a message saying that Windows did not start properly... blah blah blah. I tried all the options, and I always get the same result: a restart.

For the time being, I put the HD back into my old computer and it still works fine. Any ideas why this is happening?

[street1 (RIP)]

You are putting a hard drive on a different machine
XP isn't configured for....Think of Format....


Sentences often end with
 prepositions within......LOL

[viking]

Have you tried safe mode?

Have you tried the repair utility on the windows xp cd?

It's a driver problem... I suppose because of different motherboards. I couldn't say for sure.
But if you insist moving the old hard drive to the other computer, I would sugest you to reinstall windows. With all the troubles this involves: backup, reinstall, everything.

[patio]

This can be done doing a repair install...

[vinhboy]

"can be done" --- but not easily.

9.9 out of 10 times you cannot simply move an HD from one computer to another without reinstalling the OS.

Fortunately if it's a Dell you can get a dell OEM XP CD from anyone and install the OS then use the windows AUTH sticker code. You can try craigslists to borrow an OEM sticker.

Then you have to go to dell's website to get all your drivers.

[tC_Crazy]

OK what I did was I kept the original Dell hd, and put my eMachines HD in slave to it. I had to reinstall most programs, however, but all my documents, music, pics, etc are still there. Now the wierd thing is, the eMachines computer was a 1.6GHz P4 with 512mb of pc133 SDRAM. The Dell is a 2.4GHz Celeron with 128mb of pc-2700 DDR. The thing is, the Dell runs incredibly slow. Much, much slower than the eMachines. I'm sure the low RAM is contributing to the problem, but I still think it should be at least as fast as the older machine. I mean, it takes 10-20seconds to open My computer. And this is with virtual memory on a different HD as Windows, and all visual elements turned off ("performance" mode)

[viking]

You need more RAM. Much more RAM I would say...