Mini ATX vs IDE Hard Drive

[Creteloc]

I hope this is the right place to post this. Today I bought a new computer that has a Mini ATX with SATA hard drive. I don't want the SATA as I already have an established hard drive that I want to use. So I unplug the SATA and disable it in the Bios.

I plug in the IDE hard drive, boot up... get no failures during POST. I get the annoying "Windows did not shut down properly" message and choose Start Normally. The Bar along the bottom goes halfway then the system reboots.

So I try again, this time I choose to start up in safe mode. Again it restarts halfway.

I tried a different hard drive (as mine came out of an HP machine) but it wouldn't start either all the way either.

Any suggestions? I've played around with the bios so much I can't remember all of the settings that I've tried but none keep the PC from rebooting.

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

Did you reinstall the operating system on the hard drive

 

[Creteloc]

No I didn't, was trying not to because of 120 gig of graphic files on this other hard drive that I want to use... including my settings, web files, etc etc.

 

[RicoDirenzo]

If you can transfer all that data to the Sata drive, set up the sata and install windows: put the ide drive in as the slave; transfer your data to the sata. Then set the sata as the slave and install windows on the IDE master. You now trnasfer your data back to the ide drive and keep the sata as a slave or (better for speed) once you have transfer your data to the new sata keep it as the boot master and use the IDE as the slave for back up with all your data already on board!!!!! Better to have two hard drives for back up anyway!!! Capice? (italian for "Understand?")

 

[idiotec]

One option you can try, although I think it is better to do a fresh install whenever you do a major upgrade, is boot up off the XP CD and do a repair installation.

 

[HAVOC]

Rico got it spot on.

One of the potentially great things about "LONGHORN" will be that you will be able to have it installed on an HDD and swap it out to a completely new system & MOBO.... The first time you boot, it will automatically recognize all of the system components and configure itself automatically. Evidently, some of the production team at MS that is working on "LONGHORN" - are also avid gamers and modders. And this is their christmas present to us... lol

 

[Creteloc]

So much to try! Thank you for your fast replies.

 

[timmer]

i had the same thing happen to me and i had to reformat

 

[Trotter]

Windows basically takes a snapshot of your system's configuration when it is installed. So, unless the system you swapped the drive into is basically identical, Windows will not work, period.

I do hope that feature is incorporated into Longhorn, even though I probably won't touch it for at least the first year after its release.