How do I make this work?

[maximas]

Okay, a couple days ago my computer's motherboard went kaput. Now I want to take my hard drive that was in the computer that no longer works and put it in my back-up computer.

Here is the scenario:

I have a hard drive already in the back-up PC; However, I do not want to use it as my main drive. I want to do whatever it takes to make my hard drive work in the back-up, but I'm not completely sure about the best process to make this happen. Any suggestions?

It would be nice if I could just swap, but sadly, that is just not going to happen. They both have XP Professional... is this a driver issue that is keeping me from just swapping?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Osiris]

You got about a 98% chance that it will fail, 2% that it will work. I have had it work in the past with XP but not tried it with any other OS yet. When I did get it to work, I had to reinstall most drivers and even then it was still flaky. If you can, try it, then back up the files you need and wipe it out. You may even get Windows Activation errors depending on the version of XP you are running.

 

[KSoD]

It isnt jsut a driver issue. Windows creates what is known as a hardware profile. This is what is used to make Windows work with your hardware. As it installs the proper drivers and it is also what is used to activate. Now swapping drives changes this. Causing not only driver issues, but issues with programs as the drives are not labeled the same as before and so on. It also causes an issue with activation as you cant just swap machines and stay fully legit.

Osiris already said you have a greater chance that it will fail. You will need to do a repair install, not that everything will be good on the other end, but it is worth the shot. You will need to re-activate most likely. Possibly prompting a call to Microsoft to explain the situation.

 

[maximas]

Thanks guys! You confirmed what I already knew but didn't want to face. By the way, Osiris, I'm in the 98%

 

[maximas]

Update...

I didn't want to start a new thread, so here goes.

I now have the hard drive that came out of the computer that no longer works installed as a slave drive in my new computer. The problem is, I cannot seem to pull the files I need off of the slave drive - more clearly written, I can't find my files. I see my old programs, but not my files.

Is there any way to get my files off this slave drive? I am an insurance agent, and I have a lot of files on there I need. I do back up often, but there are probably 40 files that I did not back up... and I really need them.

Advice?

 

[Hefemeister]

What os is the computer from which you are trying to pull the files. You will need to take ownership of the files if they were located in my documents.

If it is xp.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

if the files were in my docs then the path would be.
Documents and Settings\[user name]\My Documents

 

[maximas]

What os is the computer from which you are trying to pull the files. You will need to take ownership of the files if they were located in my documents.

If it is xp.
How to take ownership of a file or a folder in Windows XP

if the files were in my docs then the path would be.
Documents and Settings\[user name]\My Documents

XP Professional. Thanks for the article! I'm reading it now.