old windows HD in new computer?

[pcMan]

I've googled this but can't find a concrete answer. I've always thought that if you installed windows in a computer, you couldnt just take the hard drive out, put it on a second computer and make it work (except for some drivers missing) but my friend did it without a problem while I told him it wasnt going to work. He used an old computer with windows 98. Did he just get lucky or will this work every time? Would it work with something other than 98 like xp or 2000? Thanks.

[pcMan]

I'll do some research next time I can get my hands on an old computer.. Please don't all respond at once to this thread.. you almost brought down the server after my last post ;)

[pr0zac]

XP has hardware checks so you'd have to reauthenticate with MS in order to use Win in the new computer. Other than massive amounts of driver errors, 2k and others (including XP after reauth) should work ok. A new install will always work better though.

-zac

[dariob]

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt. But when it works it always works less-than-perfectly so its recommended to do a complete reinstall. It seems win98 has more success rate in system-swapping than XP. I'd guess 50% for 98 and somewhere between 0% and 20% for XP.