Newbie help... combining machines

[jballard81]

I have a three year old Emachine tower that i believe the mother-board has fried on. i pulled the SATA HDD and put it into a 3-5 year old IBM Think Centre tower. When i started it up, it couldn't start windows and asked me to run the start up repair wizard, which i did. It said it couldn't help me after running for about 30 min.

Basically, im kind of tech savvy, but i was under the assumption that basically any HDD as long as it could be connected, would work with any hardware configuration. is it an issue of the emachine software not quite jiving with the IBM hardware?

im going to do some more research on this forum for some trouble-shooting tips, hopefully i can check back in and find some good news from you all!

thanks!

 

[MindoverMaster]

You are putting it in an entire new environment, different components, CPU, RAM, etc. You have to reinstall to port to another computer.

So, the answer is NO.

Welcome to TF!

 

[jballard81]

so i have been messing around and got to a basic recovery program that gave me a variety of options. One of them being to run recovery re-install on it, which I started. So that in theory should do it?

Cheers! thanks for the warm welcome!

 

[KSoD]

You can't take the hard drive from 1 machine and insert it into another and expect Windows to work. Windows uses a hardware profile. This profile is used for 2 things.

1. To install the proper drivers so that the OS can communicate and operate with the hardware properly.
2. Used in activation.

If you change the hardware profile in a major way, such as CPU and mother board changes, then you have to reinstall the OS completely as the hardware profile will no longer match and will not work. Since you took it from an eMachine which uses an OEM copy, you can't do that. OEM copies can not be transferred to another machine. That copy of the OS Died when the mother board died.

http://www.techist.com/forums/f9/differences-between-oem-retail-171393/#post1349335

That thread explains about the OEM vs Retail aspect. So you have to get yourself a new copy of Windows to install with the hardware. Unless you can find the original copy that came with the IBM and reinstall that.

 

[jballard81]

Thanks Mak213! that was some excellent info.

So oddly enough, i was able to run re-install off of my HDD (Vista Premium 32) and it reinstalled without too much hassle. I haven't been able to give it a lot of time since i am at work now, but it seems to be up and running normally. Even though it let me, that sounds like a violation of the EULA law. I have been learning more about Linux, so i might just install Ubuntu and remove MS instead of purchasing a new license.

This machine honestly only needs to get me by for a little bit while i gather the experience and cash to build a new machine that will better suit my needs.