built new comp, swapped in old HD, trying to get it to load windows...

[camosilver311]

The iso has to be burned as an image.

If you have an extra hard drive, pop it in and install Windows on it. Don't worry about activating it. Once it is installed, put the old drive in as a second hard drive. Find the file and delete/replace it.

if i take one of my other hard drives (all have lots of stuff i don't want to lose on them) will the install of xp on that drive wipe out/erase anything on that drive? there is an option to partition that drive too during the install, should i do that for all the windows files?

 

[Trotter]

I wouldn't risk it. Have you tried using the Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (ERD Commander) or BartPE yet?