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Hard drive transition

M

Mahachippy

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 17, 2005
Messages
207
I am wondering if I get a shuttle sff will the hard drive in my current computer work? What I mean is, can I use my existing hard drive with all of my programs, os, etc. and put it in a shuttle sff and have it work? Will it just recognize the new surroundings and could I load drivers for them and then be on my merry way!?
 
Chances are that it will lock up once you boot into Windows. If it does not then you have a shot that it may (If you have XP) ask you to re-register Windows with Microsoft. Should it not ask for that then it will work long enough for you to install some nForce drivers. If I were you, just to be safe, I would format it once it is inside the SFF.
 
Thanks for the info! One question though..I am a noob...why would it lock up? Is changing a motherboard not like adding say a video card or something? Sorry if the question sounds kinda dumb!
 
windows xp has a security feature that prevents a hdd w/ a windows xp install to be installed on a seperate machine. just another stupid security plow put in by microsoft to prevent ppl from copy data from one place to another.
 
Mahachippy said:
Ahhh...gotcha..dang it...why must Microsoft pretend to be so safe!? :mad:
Click to expand...
because they have so many flaws, that the more 'security' they stick into windows, the better theyll look.

ha, yea... my butt...
 
Oh well, I guess I could always downgrade to a smaller case and try to immitate the effect of a shuttle sff!
 
how big is the HDD? if you have the space, go ahead and 'acquire' Norton Ghost and Partition Magic, create a seperate partition, Ghost your drive to the second partition, reformat the original partition w/ the new mobo, and reinstall Ghost and PM and move everything back over to the new windows partition.
 
The Hd is 120 Gb...although I only am using 38 Gb..I think I might try the Ghost thing...thanks for the info!
 
Mahachippy said:
Thanks for the info! One question though..I am a noob...why would it lock up? Is changing a motherboard not like adding say a video card or something? Sorry if the question sounds kinda dumb!
Click to expand...

It would lock up if the chipset is radically different or if the board has a bunch of on board peripherals that the previous one had -- but with different brands. What I am trying to say is that the existing drivers on the HDD may hard lock on boot up if the components are not the same. Generally (for example) if you go from an NF2 board to NF2 board it should be ok, but if you are going from VIA to an nForce board it is much more likely to lock up due to incompatibilities. You may be able to boot into safe mode and uninstall everything... but you would still have to deal with the Microsoft reactivation. Should you get a notice like that from them you will have to call a toll free number to have them issue you a new CD Key.
 
Oh, okay...thanks for the info rene...I never knew that changing mobo could be such a pain. I will look into the boards and such to see if I can get a close a match as possible..if not, I think I will the ghost thing. Thanks for all of your help everybody!
 
shadowbreaker513 said:
All you should have to do is a repair installation of Windows.
Click to expand...
is that really gonna work? im gonna be replacing a mobo in a clients pc, but reformatting is almost out of the question. if i replace it and run the repair, itll work? i really hope that works.
 
Yes, a repair installation will work, as long as you do an F2 repair after the welcome screen and the prompt for [F6] drivers. Do not use the ASR feature when the CD first boots.

The reason why WinXP doesn't behave like 98, ME doesn't have anything to do with security. Rather, it has to do with the WinXP prekernel that needs to know the exact configuration of your IDE (or SCSI) controller in order to complete boot. Your system won't lock up but instead BSOD with an "Inaccessable Boot device" error and promptly reboot. It simply means that the kernel didn't have direct access to your controller cause it dostn't contain a "generic" IDE controller. Its been that way since WinNT, and will be that way in the forseeable future.

Regards,

-E
 
Mr. Slappy, thanks for the link and thanks to everybody else for the info...I am starting to like my options now..microsoft will not get me yet!! :D
 
Repair may or may not work. It's not going to lock up your PC, but it may freeze when it tries to load Windows or I think spit out an "NTLDR is missing" error.

Best thing to do is try it and see.
 
I am fixing to take the plunge and get a new mobo. I have reread this post and understand how to use my old harddrive with a new mobo, but I have a question. How would I transfer my files to a new sata drive...I currently have an ide drive..same one that I described above, but want to go to a sata drive. Needless to say that my current mobo has only an ide connection port. So, I guess my question is, do I to the sysprep on my ide drive, install the new mobo, setup my ide drive, then once that is up and going well, hook up my sata drive, ghost my ide drive, and then transfer that image to the sata drive? Then, do I just unhook my ide drive, reboot using my sata drive? Sorry if I confused ya'll....yes, I enjoy doing things the hard way!! :p
 
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