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Win 2K HDD won't boot in another system.

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7 replies

by compubandit

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Ok so I goofed up big. I forgot my anti-static wrist strap when carrying out a optical drive upgrade on a Optiplex GX150. Result? Failed motherboard or power supply. However I would like to take the HDD from that computer and put it in another dell and boot from it. The drive is formatted FAT32 and the other system does run Win2k on its native hard drive. However, when I swap the hard drives, the computer will not fully load win2k. On some machines I get a blue screen stating a hardware failure while on my home machine, the system restarts after fully loading on the status bar. The system won't boot in safe mode nor will it boot to a command line. I think vital part of windows might be damaged, but for fear of data loss I don't want to do an in place upgrade. What are your thoughts?

7 replies

by thechas

Unlike good old DOS and even Windows 98, Windows 2000 and XP do not take kindly to being moved to different hardware.

What you are seeing is "normal" for when you move a drive with W2K or XP to new hardware.

The way the HAL is set up on a W2K or XP system when Windows is installed restricts the system to similar hardware.

Check out this link for further information:

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/install/other/motherboard/win2k.htm

Chas

by caestelle

Like TheChas said, Win2k and WinXP do not do well when being moved to different hardware. If you can find a computer that is the exact same model or close you might have some luck. Otherwise, I would suggest you put the hard drive in another computer as the secondary/slave and copy any needed data off and then start from scratch...format HD, reload Windows and then copy the needed data back to the hard drive. Hope this helps!!

by jerry_davis

I would install the drive and boot up with a disk check utility from tha manufacturer of the drive.

I dont think it has to do with the different hardware as the HAL in W2K is not the same as XP. It does not take a hardware snapshot. I have many times swapped drives with W2K and had no problems. Heck I have even imaged a AMD system with an image that was made from a Pentium 3 machine. The result? Load the hardware and off it goes.

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