Upgrade Issues

[GabrielArgent]

The problem I am having is upgrading my current computer.  I will start by giving my current specs and then what I am upgrading to, then give you the problem.

Current:

AMD Athlon XP 2800+ 2.0 GHz
A7N8X Asus Motherboard
1.5 GB DDR Ram
Radeon X850 Video Card
Windows XP service pack 2
2 120 GB SATA hard drives in a RAID0
Antec 480W PS

Upgrade:

Intel Core 2 E6600 2.4 GHz
D975XBX2 Intel Motherboard
2.0 GB DDR2 800 Ram
Radeon X1950 Video Card
Hard drives, OS and PS are the same.

The issue I am having is when I boot up after everything is installed and hooked up it either says there is no operating system installed or it goes to a blue screen for a few seconds then goes black and my monitor light blinks.  It will let me create a new raid but a prompt says that will lose all the data currently on those drives which, obviously, I don't want to do.  I am kinda confused since it will detect the drives just apparently not any of the data that is stored on them.  Thanks in advance for any replies.

[GX1_Man]

Windows should be installed on the machine it is expected to run on. It sound slike this is not the case here. There are just too many variables involved for it to cope.

You might try a repair install. Do you have a real Windows CD?

Other possibilities are an incorrect build or other hardware problems. There are too many variables here all at once. It needs to be simplified. So recheck EVERYTHING and then try to boot with just the CPU/fan, video card (if not separate) and one stick of RAM. Does that boot?

Windows will not fix a hardware issue.

[GabrielArgent]

Gonna respond in quotes if I can get it right so I can answer questions easier.

Windows should be installed on the machine it is expected to run on. It sound slike this is not the case here. There are just too many variables involved for it to cope.

The hard drives in both systems are the same so Windows is definitely installed.  I actually had to take the new parts out and put all the old stuff back in so I could access the internet to see if I could find some help.  I am not 100% sure but I think the issue is that while they are in a RAID now on the old system when I attempt to boot with the new system it isn't recognizing the RAID so it thinks it is a fresh install.  

You might try a repair install. Do you have a real Windows CD?

Yes, but it is a Windows Upgrade CD.  Would that work?

Other possibilities are an incorrect build or other hardware problems. There are too many variables here all at once. It needs to be simplified. So recheck EVERYTHING and then try to boot with just the CPU/fan, video card (if not separate) and one stick of RAM. Does that boot? Windows will not fix a hardware issue.

Not 100% sure, do you mean try and boot without the hard drives and see if it will go to BIOS?  Or just remove all the un-essential parts and see if it will boot to windows?

I appreciate the quick response.

[GX1_Man]

The hard drives in both systems are the same so Windows is definitely installed.  I actually had to take the new parts out and put all the old stuff back in so I could access the internet to see if I could find some help.  I am not 100% sure but I think the issue is that while they are in a RAID now on the old system when I attempt to boot with the new system it isn't recognizing the RAID so it thinks it is a fresh install.  

The hard drives are the same but the motherboards and other components are not. This is enough to cause a problem right there.

Yes, but it is a Windows Upgrade CD.  Would that work?

That should work if it is the same version of Windows. If not the same service pack level you will have to reinstall that and all of the updates. Have a read here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/tips/doug92.mspx

Not 100% sure, do you mean try and boot without the hard drives and see if it will go to BIOS?  Or just remove all the un-essential parts and see if it will boot to windows?

Remove ALL of the drives for this exercise as well as add on cards, etc.

RAID is a complicating factor as well.