any computer genious ( hd help )

[alecmcmahon]

alright, i have a 160 gig HD i bought a little while ago for my studio computer... freshly installed win xp, but i have no internet on that computer and i need to activate win xp.... so what i did was take the Hard drive and put it on my home pc, and try to boot up and i get the BSOD.... ( pictured below ) when i slave it, it works fine in windows, i can access it, etc... but i cant boot from it...

any ideas?

 

[Middleman]

I'm not a computer expert but I slept at Holiday Inn Express last night..

Your hard drive is looking for the Motherboard and chip set that the drive was working with when Windows was installed. You are asking it to load with all of the original drivers for video, bios etc but it's not longer in that machine.

You either have to wipe the drive and reinstall Windows on the new machine or get your original XP disk and repair the existing OS install so it will rescan your hardware and put the necessary files and driver references in the registry file which is used for boot up.

 

[alecmcmahon]

I'm not a computer expert but I slept at Holiday Inn Express last night..

Your hard drive is looking for the Motherboard and chip set that the drive was working with when Windows was installed. You are asking it to load with all of the original drivers for video, bios etc but it's not longer in that machine.

You either have to wipe the drive and reinstall Windows on the new machine or get your original XP disk and repair the existing OS install so it will rescan your hardware and put the necessary files and driver references in the registry file which is used for boot up.

ah i think i get it... my idea sounds stupid now..... is there a way past it... disabling all the ' checking '


it was really just suppused to take 10 minutes... pop it in, activate windows via internet... then pop it back in studio computer

 

[Middleman]

No way around it. You just can't pop system drives from one machine to the next unless you create your own config screen with dual OS capability. In fact, I am not even sure this can be done so that 2 registries exist. Maybe, just never heard of it unless using 2 different OS installs like Windows 98 and XP. I don't know if you can use 2 of the same OS installs but maybe someone else can tell you that.

 

[demensia]

If you just need to activate winxp, just call the activation line and do it over the phone. Microsoft will give you an activation key.

Its kind of annoying, but it will get the job done.

 

[Middleman]

Activation is not the issue. He can't get the drive to boot because it blue screens prior to boot up. This is because the instructions in the registry file don't coincide with the hardware in the computer.

 

[demensia]

Activation is not the issue. He can't get the drive to boot because it blue screens prior to boot up. This is because the instructions in the registry file don't coincide with the hardware in the computer.

Right.. But the instructions in the registry don't coincide with the hardware in the computer because from what I understand, he took the drive out and put it in another box that had internet access in order to activate it.

Activating by phone would be a much simpler alternative.

 

[Middleman]

Got ya. Your right, leaving it in the original computer for activation by phone solves the problem.

 

[cephus]

XP has enhanced copy protection functionality that prevents you from swapping hard drives between computers. If the Xp installation detects a different mobo serial number or some other identifyer, it assumes you've copied the hard drive to bypass registration. win2k also will croak if you try to put a hard drive in a system with a different architecture, but will work if the second system has identical hardware. In 2k it is a functional problem as described in the first reply regarding drivers, etc. This can be overcome using the original installation CD. In XP, it is related to the identity of the mobo, so you have to call Bill God so he can make sure that you paid for the OS.