Using an old hard drive in new build!

[red9]

Hi All, wondering if anyone can advise me on the following:

My dear old emachines 790 has finally given up on me, having done my own diagnosis and spoken to a very helpful, and honest, chap at PC World it would appear that my motherboard has frazzled itself.

So.....having gained more confidence and experience over the past few years I have decided that I'd prefer to try and fix/rebuild my own system.

I feel that I am fairly competent and knowledgable in terms of buying compatible MOBOs, CPUs etc etc but there is one issue that I am aware of with which I am less comfortable......

What is the deal with using my old hard drive with a new MOBO and CPU setup? Before my trip to PC World I was under the impression that, with Windows XP already installed on my hard drive, I could just connect it to the MOBO and hey presto off we go. I was informed, however, that I may run into problems in regards to the MOBO's BIOS, or something, and some subsequent Windows verification. Having been duped with an emachines, from PC World, I, of course, only have a system restore CD and not a full version of windows itself.

So, what I really want to know is this: can I just 'plug' in my old hard drive and expect plain sailing OR am I going to have to get my hands on a Windows CD in order to see to the problem MR. PC World envisaged? And are there any other issues I may run into?

Thanks in advance for any help or advice people may be able to offer.

[Alfie]

As the motherboard will be different than the original,XP will run into problems and may not boot.
The easiest solution is to install the hard drive,boot off the XP cd and do a repair install,the OS will then work with the new motherboard,XP will have to be reactivated,but that's no big deal.
Are you building a new system completely or just putting a new motherboard in the Emachine?
To do a repair install,boot off the cd,XP will do it's thing and then offer the option to repair or install,you want to choose install at that juncture as repair will bring up the console,which you don't want.
As XP checks the system it will notify you a OS is already installed,do you wish to install or repair,choose repair,XP will then repair the OS,all updates to OS will have to be reinstalled after the repair,which you can do at Windows update.

[red9]

Thanks for your help Alfie, but will I be able to do this with my emachines restore CD - I do not have a dedicated XP disc!

[Alfie]

The emachine cd is probably geared towards the original configuration and may not work,how many components are you changing?
If you're just changing the motherboard,it might work,but be prepared to purchase a seperate XP cd.
Is the motherboard a direct replacement for the dead one or is it from another source?

[red9]

I'm planning on slolwly rebuilding the whole thing with better quality and more reputable components so....no, the replacement MOBO will be completely different from the old Trigem? one that the system came with!

[Alfie]

I would completely rebuild and get a new XP cd,the case on the Emachine may be proprietary as well as the power supply,if you start adding new components,the power supply will probably prove to be underpowered.

[glc]

No, you cannot reuse the eMachines XP load in a new computer. Even if you could get it to boot without a bluescreen, M$ will not allow a reactivation. The XP load is only licensed to the eMachine.

[red9]

Thanks for all the advice everyone. After considering all my options I have done the following:

Bought new MOBO, Graphics Card, PSU and case.

Installed all hardware OK, all working fine.

The problem I faced was the need to get my data off my hard drive before reinstalling windows. So, I bought a 2nd HD with the hope of setting it to Master and my old one to slave. The plan was then to try and use my emachines restore disc on the new HD and then just copy all my data from the old HD once I had got into windows.

I was pleasantly surprised when, having only the new HD connected, the system ended up booting from the CD-ROM and asked me if I wanted to restore Windows XP. Had the usual warning re. losing all data etc but considering there was nothing on the HD there was nothing to worry about.

It then looked as if the restore CD was doing its business very well - I had a Symantec logo, of a ghost, come up and it looked as if the system was being restored?! Unfortunately when the reboot moment of truth came I got the good old 'windows did not startup correctly last time' message - I tried all of the options but the system kept on rebooting with not a windows logo in sight.

So, can anyone help me with:

1. What was happening with the old Symantec screen? I was asked to put CD2 in and everything!

2. Why will windows not startup?

3. Will this all be solved by getting a full version of XP and booting up with that?

Hope you guys can shed some light on the situation!

Many thanks in advance.

[Alfie]

The restore disk is for the original machine,it will not work with a new computer.
You need to get a XP cd and install the OS on your new drive,you can then install the old drive as a slave and use it and have access to your data.

[red9]

Right, update number 2!

I went for the plunge and decided to buy my own copy of XP Pro to load onto the new HD. The theory being that I would simply be able to setup my old HD as a slave drive and then pull everything off it that I needed.

The first step went very smoothly, considering I haven't ever installed and OS onto an unformatted HD before. XP Pro up and running, old HD set to slave. Went into My Computer, old HD came up as F: and tried to double click it. Got a warning saying that the drive was unformatted. I looked at the drive's properties form the dialogue box and it descrbed the drive as being RAW, and couldn't distinguish between the used and unused space.

So, what could the problem be here? The computer obviously recognises the old HD as being there, the drive is formatted (and contains a lot of data!), yet it wont let me access it.

Having spoken to a friend who is in IT - software based - he said that there may be a conflict between the file allocation systems used by XP Pro - NTFS - (on the new HD), and XP Home - FAT32 - (on the old HD).

Am I going to have to resort to taking my old HD to a shop and getting them to take everything off it and onto DVD(s)?

Again, any help would be much appreciated.

[Alfie]

XP is capable of reading ntfs and fat 32,so that shouldn't be a problem,how do you have the drives jumpered and are you using a 40 wire or 80 wire ribbon?
If you're using a 80 wire ribbon it's blue end to motherboard,the end of ribbon is master and the gray middle connector is slave,both drives jumpered to CS(cable select).

[klick81]

when you tried to boot with just the old HD with the emachines cd and do a restore, it probably wiped your partition table. the data is still there (unless you saw anything saying "Formatting drive..." then its gone. if you have a few more bucks you could try a partioning program like Acronis Disk Director http://affiliate.acronis.com/homecom.../diskdirector/ or Partition Magic http://www.powerquest.com/partitionmagic/
this would be my first guess and my first try. if you were running xp before, and have for certain not formatted or repartitioned the drive, then i would guess the partition table got wiped by something during the restore. which would mean that xp sees that there is a disk there (heck, the bios can tell it that) but if there is no partition table then winxp can't find any information saying the size of the disk, partition, disk labels, allocation tables or anything else... so it says that its not formatted and needs to be formatted.. just remember, until you get your data FORMAT = BAD

[red9]

Well, thanks to the advice given by a friend, I have managed to get everything off my old HD using data recovery software. The most important stuff - work related - is all working fine yet there seem to be big problems with .avi, .rar and .ppt files. Could there be a reason for this or is it just coincidence? They have been copied onto my new HD but will not open.

Anyway, most stuff saved so a BIG thankyou to everyone who has offered help and advice.