new tower, old harddrive

[paulobrien6969]

hi, i have a new tower on the way  and the only thing im keeping out of my old one is the graphics card and the harddrive .
the reason im keeping the old harddrive is A.nothing wrong with it and B.i dont want to have to install windows xp pro and all the updates etc etc
again
now the new pc tower will have new drivers for motherboard etc,
ive been told that i can put the drivers on my old pc shutit down and stick the harddrive in the new tower

is this gonna work?

[bj229r]

I did this very thing a few weeks ago....alas, wasnt that smooth---hard drive wont recognize lotsa stuff on new motherboard..(drivers wont be right, etc) gotta deal with each exclamation point in device manager one at a time (like..modem..sound driver...etc) If ya can get it goin in safe mode, a few hours of cursing prolly gets it goin;

[paulobrien6969]

well ive got someone coming round to set it up, he knows a lot more than me having built his own from scratch
i was just wondering if what he was proposing was possible,he wasnt sure himself
as i said he is going to put all the new drivers on the harddrive whilst its still in the old machine ,so it should  recognise the drivers for the new motherboard when its connected, shouldnt it?

ty for reply

[vfrocket]

its not too hard, be sure if you can backup your old Hd. if not then you will just have to go for it.

install your new HD, next set your bios to boot from the CD first.
** Most important** DO NOT try to boot from the HD the first time.

let machine boot from windows xp cd. follow the steps to install a new version, but when it inspectis your HD it will see the old operating system, and give you the option to do a recovery install.

do this, you will have to re-register XP but this is really the only way to do it. I have done it 2 X now, with not too many problems. You may have to install some device drivers, and you will defenately have to install all the service packs again. Unfortunately this is the only way to load the new MB drivers into windows XP.

please see this website for more detailed instructions:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html

Hope this helps, hope it goes smooth...

VFR

[MOSQ]

Paul,

You're asking for a lot of problems doing it that way. My best advice, burn all your important data to a cd. You can save your web browser favorites settings, even your cookies so web sites recognize you. In Internet Explorer it's File> Import and Export> click on Export Favorites, then run it all again to Export Cookies to the CD.  Save everything you want to keep on the CD(s).

Then reformat the hard drive. Once you've reformatted it, put it in the new tower under construction. Boot form the Windows CD and do a clean install of all chipset drivers, ethernet drivers, sound drivers, video drivers, ect.

Otherwise your going to have a computer full of old goo and conflicts that won't perform at it's peak. After all, that's why your putting out the $ right, better performance.

[vfrocket]

I agree a clean install is the best option, I was just offering a way to do it and maintian the registry.... other wise a fesh install involves re-installing all programs.

If you have all your software CD, I would agree a fresh install is the way to go.

[StarOfAfrica2]

They sell retail programs specially designed to make moving your files and OS to another computer easy.  PCMover lets you move files, and import registry settings from the old computer to the new one.  Not saying you need to buy such a thing to make it
work, you can do it without of course but it does alot of the work for you.

[paulobrien6969]

thanx for the info
much appreciated
ive already done the swap
and yes i have a few conflict problems
but im gonna format the drive and reinstall everything
didnt read the replys until after i'd done it .
    doh