hard drive question

whewa

whewa

New member
I am thinking about purchasing somebodies old computer tower. I own an hp and its soo hard to work on the inside. But anyways my hp tower is broken in a couple places and could use some tlc. What I have though about doing is actually purchasing this new tower from a friend. It has the same processor as I do so I won't be down grading and I wanted to scrap my hp's decent parts to upgrade this new tower. The question is will my computer be the same if I bring my harddrive to a new computer, will it still have windows and all my installed programs?
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Zampy @ Dec 20 2005, 06:06 PM) [snapback]15167[/snapback][/center]
if the processor on the other computer is running on the same OS as yours, shouldn't be a problem
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what if the difference is between windows xp pro and home editions?
 
The best advice I can give is to do things purposefully and slowly. You don't want to do too many things at one time. If you do things in steps, and something goes wrong, you can just take a step back instead of wondering what the hell just happened.

Everything should work for you. My only reservations for this is that this new computer will have a different motherboard, different DOS, or maybe some different cards. I've never done this myself, so I can't share any experiences with you...

but, in the absolute worst case... make sure you have the installation files or CDs for all of the programs you use. Make your old hard drive the secondary drive in your new rig. Each program is different, but some programs will be easy to reinstall. I did this, and when I reloaded SWG I installed it to the old directory, so all it needed was like 5 minutes with the #3 CD and it was done. It just scans for the missing files and the installer takes care of it. This way you don't have to redownload all of the patches and updates.
 
You don't wanna port a Windows installation on another system, trust me. If the motherboards are different, which they are usually, you'll want to do a fresh install.
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Arano @ Dec 20 2005, 05:32 PM) [snapback]15183[/snapback][/center]
You don't wanna port a Windows installation on another system, trust me. If the motherboards are different, which they are usually, you'll want to do a fresh install.
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So use my advice with the second hard drive...

plug in the second drive and just delete any windows folders, so all you have is stored information. Just reinstall all of your programs to the location you already have them on your second drive. It will repair you installation and rewrite the needed information to the primary drive. It's quick and easy, and might work for you if you can understand my ranting...
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Arano @ Dec 20 2005, 06:32 PM) [snapback]15183[/snapback][/center]
You don't wanna port a Windows installation on another system, trust me. If the motherboards are different, which they are usually, you'll want to do a fresh install.
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See this sucks because HP totally riped me and never included a windows disk, and paying for windows would turn me off of doing this
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Whewa @ Dec 20 2005, 05:36 PM) [snapback]15188[/snapback][/center]
See this sucks because HP totally riped me and never included a windows disk, and paying for windows would turn me off of doing this
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maybe someone can send you a copy... if worse comes to worse, send me a PM after xmas and we can talk about me sending one to you... :)
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(djmtott @ Dec 20 2005, 09:18 PM) [snapback]15258[/snapback][/center]
maybe someone can send you a copy... if worse comes to worse, send me a PM after xmas and we can talk about me sending one to you... :)
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lol thanks, but I just talked with my friend and I think I got things worked out. She is going to give me the harddrive that was in the tower and it has xp on it already. I am going to make my harddrive a second harddrive because I eat a lot with my pictures. Then I was going to buy a new hard drive for this old tower and fix it up and I have my friends copy of xp, so I think it just might work out, but we will have to see.

When, and if i get this to work out, I'll post and tell how everything went. Thanks for all the help everyone, I really just thought things would just work and I could just change my harddrive to any computer and it would work out well. Lol wow was I wrong.
 
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