Swapped hard drives don't work ?

Question

I recently tried swapping the HDD's of 2 computers i have.

It works fine up until that black screen with the windows logo and the blue loading bar thing is supposed to come up. It just freezes on a black screen instead of loading that windows thing.

On the other HDD in the other comp at the same place the computer suddenly restarts.

Could this be because they both already have an OS on them? I thought that that didn't matter and it would just load the OS on the HDD?

Do i need to format them or repair the installation for the hard drives to work?

Answer 1

It is likely that the two computers have different hardware. The drivers for the hardware on one computer are incompatible with the hardware on the other computer. The hardware difference that causes this problem could be because of the difference in expansion cards. But, there is a good chance the problem is caused by differences in the motherboard.



With Windows, you can sometimes fix this problem using safe mode. Give Windows a lot of extra time to get into safe mode. If you can get into safe mode, use the hardware manager to delete all your hardware and drivers. Reboot the computer. Windows should start finding new hardware, and begin the procedure for installing the drivers. You may have to reboot and let Windows run the new hardware wizard several times.



However, there is a good chance that you can't get into safe mode. What happens next depends on whether or not you have files you want to keep on those hard drives.



If this is the case, you can fix the problem by re-installing Windows. Try repairing the existing Windows installation first. If that doesn't work (there is a good chance it won't), and you are willing to loose data on the hard drives, do a full re-install Windows.



Added 14 hours after post:



So far, the third answer is the best -- especially if you have XP or Vista. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/824125

Answer 2

Why did you swap? Needed a larger harddrive in one computer, and took it out of another? Put it's harddrive back in the other one, so it could continue working also?



Wanted to experiment, and see if you could do it?



Doesn't matter.



Let me tell you about how the Windows Operating System works.



Windows is made by Microsoft.

Microsoft has a users license, that states that ONE genuine copy of the Windows Operating System, to ONE computer.



This is to help protect their investment. They make the O/S to sell. If

a user was allowed to put the same genuine copy on 10,000 computers or more, Microsoft would go broke. (Unless Bill Gates loaned 'em sum money! lol!)



In order to insure this, when Windows is installed on a computer, it assigns 'codecs'. Small pieces of code. These match up to certain hardware inside your computer. Sort of like assigning a serial number to them. Some of the major components are the processor, harddrive, and BIOS program (And version) on the BIOS chip, on your motherboard.



The number/letter code (Codec) is sent to Microsoft when Windows is first activated on the computer. You have to activate Windows in order to get it to work. (You don't need to register, just activate)

This number/letter code is also stored on your harddrive.



If you change two or more components inside your computer, like say the processor and the motherboard, a 'red flag' goes up, and Windows wants to be activated again. (Windows Genuine Advantage Tool is part of what checks your computer, to see if it's a Genuine copy)



Most of the time just changing a motherboard does it. Now you have come along, and changed a BUNCH of components. The processor, motherboard, ram memory, graphics, everything is Different!

I don't think changing the harddrives back now, will even work!



You need to get the Activation screen. Contact Microsoft, and ask them how to do it. IF you get the activation screen, you can click on the option to call Microsoft, and activate over the phone. It's a toll free number. Doesn't cost you to activate them either. I would do one harddrive, then hang up, and call back for the other harddrive. You'll see what I mean if you get this far.



If you can't activate Windows on these harddrives, you will have to buy TWO genuine copies of Windows, and install one for each computer.

You also need to go into BIOS Setup for each computer, then go to Boot Options, and set the First Boot Device to CDROM.



Windows doesn't like being copied over, with an O/S that wasn't the original. You have to set your Boot Order to use your optical drive, (CD or DVD drive) to be the first device that the computer will boot from.

Answer 3

Each copy of windows has a hardware profile on it, so yes - you need to reinstall windows on both systems. You can't just remove a hard drive from one system and have it boot in another system. Microsoft doesn't allow that.