Hard drive won't recognise

[Monkey Boy]

I've just taken a 80Gb hard drive out of a second hand computer, which i bought from a friend, but it won't register with mine.
This hard drive has the same operating system as mine, XP Pro, but won't work. It has a lot of programs and files already on which I would like to keep so, would prefer not to format it if I can avoid it.
Any advice :confused:

My current spec is: -
CPU - Intel Pentium 3 (SL35E) 500/512/100
Memory - 512RAM (PC100)
Motherboard - MS6156 ver:1.0 BX7
Video card - ATI Radeon 9250 VPU, with 128MB DDR memory

[jeofrey10100900]

did you try, file transfer on XP. i believed microft has a utility file transfer and setting wizard. i haven't tried it from xp to xp but give it a try

[Panama Red]

Just boot to your XP cd and do a repair/install. You may need a drivers disk for your mobo since the hdd came out of another machine.

[glc]

You have a bios issue. Your bios can't see a 80 gig drive and it needs updating.

http://www.wimsbios.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4538&highlight=a6156p5

Good luck, this particular one is confusing. That motherboard may be an OEM NEC or Packard Bell.