Slightly OT: Can I switch out hard drives?

Randy Brown wrote on 10/3/2003, 2:48 PM

Thanks for your efforts,
Okay I have a new, almost dedicated, system with XP Home and I think I've screwed things up by trying to "tweak" it (getting errors in V4). I have so little on there I was thinking about moving everything over to the 2nd drive, reformating and starting over but I can't find my disk. My older system has XP Pro (and I can find the disk) and I was wondering what kind of (if any) mess I could get into by just switching out the primary hard drives. Would they A) freak out B) blow up or C) work perfectly and my life be perfect again?

UPDATE: I just found my XP Home disk, but still, what would you do?
TIA,
Randy

Comments

jetdv wrote on 10/3/2003, 3:01 PM

I'm sure it would run - would probably search for drivers to match the new system, and then would want you to reregister it (since it's XP and you've put it in a new machine.)

BillyBoy wrote on 10/3/2003, 3:02 PM

Due to Microsoft's insane protection scheme each copy of Windows XP is tied to the machine it is ORIGINALLY installed on. So no, you can't transfer one copy of Windows from one machine to another easily anymore. That's the "official" answer. Scuttlebutt I've heard suggests Windows allows itself to be reinstalled on another machine in effect resetting its protection scheme after six months.

I don't know about that, I never tested it. So doing what you want may or may not work. The problem is you won't know until you try it. So if you don't mind spending the 30-40 minutes to install Windows only to get a error message due to what I said above give it a shot. The reason I know that is the following "dumb" thing I did.

As I said many times in the forum I have multiple PC's. Mainly one downstairs, another upstairs. I also have two Windows XP discs. What I did that was "dumb" was I forgot to label which Windows disc belong with which PC. So when I built my last system I guessed wrong and grabbed the wrong Windows disc. Only after Windows went through the entire install process did it pop up a screen bellyaching about what I said making me mad enough that I wanted to strangle Bill Gates if he would have been wtihin a mile of me. Grrr...

Randy Brown wrote on 10/3/2003, 3:17 PM

Thanks for the quick replies guys,
I thought it wouldn't need to be re-registered because it would think it was dealing with the same machine. Are there other places (other than the primary hard drive) that Windows keeps it's information as to what computer it's running on? In other words if one were to upgrade an old system with a new processor, motherboard, and memory would it make you re-register?
Lastly,it's been a hundred years since I reformatted a HD (well okay, but it's been a long time!) with disk in hand what's the easiest way to get my default settings back without re-installing everything...or should I just move everything important to the 2nd HD and totally reformat?
Thanks again Edward and BB,
Randy

jetdv wrote on 10/3/2003, 3:22 PM

if one were to upgrade an old system with a new processor, motherboard, and memory would it make you re-register?

Yes it probably would. You can supposedly make up to around 6 changes to the system before it is required.

Randy Brown wrote on 10/3/2003, 3:37 PM

If there's not a big advantage to running a dedicated V4 machine on XP Pro instead of XP Home, perhaps I should just stick with Home and reformat it?
Thanks again,
Randy

jetdv wrote on 10/3/2003, 3:39 PM

Probably your best bet.

Randy Brown wrote on 10/3/2003, 3:42 PM

Thanks again Edward!
Randy

Randy Brown wrote on 10/3/2003, 3:46 PM

BTW, what's the best way to do this, should I choose reformat in Explorer or just put the disk in and install? Sorry, it's been a long time and I'm a bit paranoid.
TIA,
Randy

jetdv wrote on 10/3/2003, 4:19 PM

If it is your boot drive, you CAN'T do it from windows. Boot from the CD and do it all from there.

Randy Brown wrote on 10/3/2003, 5:30 PM

Sorry to be a pain Edward (or anyone else that can help), but I installed from the CD and everything looks the same.
Can you tell me how to totally delete all settings etc. I had to open the CD after restarting with the CD in the drive because I have auto play turned off. If I get auto play back on will it "boot from the CD" as you mentioned. I know this is elementary stuff but I haven't done this since Win '98.

UPDATE: I did notice that my "services" seem to be back to the default (system restore and automatic updates seem to be running) does this mean everything I screwed up should be back to default?!

Thanks again,
Randy

jetdv wrote on 10/3/2003, 10:40 PM

If you truly want to install from scratch, you will need to BOOT from the CD (not autostart after windows has already booted). You may need to change the order of booting in the BIOS if it doesn't automatically do this. When the CD boots, it automatically starts the setup program. Within the setup program, there is an option to format the current drive. This will wipe it clean.

Randy Brown wrote on 10/4/2003, 8:46 AM

Thanks Edward, I'm going to see how V4 does as is; it appears the install (or reinstall) defaulted all of the services etc and left everything else alone so it may be just what I wanted. I'll be extra careful this time and only select things I'm positive I don't want running (ie Auto Updates and System Restore). Thanks again for all of your help Edward!
Randy