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Can I simply swap hard drives?
Green Giant:
Don't know if I got here to late, but I have never had trouble with this. I have cleaned up friends computers in the past that had been so infected with viruses that they wouldn't run at all. I dropped their harddrives in my machines, much faster and capable of running with all the other junk running, and ran some stuff to clean it up.
I find you just wait a little while and windows will recognize just about everything. After I fixed their harddrives I just dropped it back in their machine, no problem. The only thing I could possibly see going wrong is if you have several game controllers hooked up getting reassigned different device id's. This isn't the darkages of computers, XP won't freak out and blue screen if it finds all new hardware.
Worst comes to worst, you will have the XP file system corrupted and have to install on a new harddrive. Once the new OS is on there you can still add the old harddrive in the system as a backup and copy the files over that way. I have also done that a million times on many machines.
MrMojoZ:
--- Quote from: Green Giant on September 24, 2007, 01:35:08 pm --- I dropped their harddrives in my machines, much faster and capable of running with all the other junk running, and ran some stuff to clean it up.
This isn't the darkages of computers, XP won't freak out and blue screen if it finds all new hardware.
--- End quote ---
Thats not how it works nor does it reflect the issue being discussed. You lucked out in that your IDE controllers were close enough to not cause a problem. What happens when most drives are swapped between motherboards is XP will blue screen on boot, there is no hardware recognizing period. We used to fix with a windows repair but that has not been working, going to try Boykster's method next time I see a system that needs it.
Green Giant:
--- Quote from: MrMojoZ on September 24, 2007, 02:01:38 pm ---
--- Quote from: Green Giant on September 24, 2007, 01:35:08 pm --- I dropped their harddrives in my machines, much faster and capable of running with all the other junk running, and ran some stuff to clean it up.
This isn't the darkages of computers, XP won't freak out and blue screen if it finds all new hardware.
--- End quote ---
Thats not how it works nor does it reflect the issue being discussed. You lucked out in that your IDE controllers were close enough to not cause a problem. What happens when most drives are swapped between motherboards is XP will blue screen on boot, there is no hardware recognizing period. We used to fix with a windows repair but that has not been working, going to try Boykster's method next time I see a system that needs it.
--- End quote ---
I have done this 8 or 9 times all with motherboards built in the last few years with success on them all. On servers this actually works even better as I have done this hundreds of times with many different operating systems on several types of servers. Suse has many problems but Windows always worked great. That is why I said in the past it would have caused problems. The biggest problems I found was the video driver not getting recognized immediatley, but with some luck, windows will find something suitable and install it for you.
As for the issue being discussed, that covers it exactly. He wants to just swap out the drives without doing any time consuming work. This method should first be done using the vga video, but once up and running it should be able to install the correct drivers and use svideo. And if it doesn't work, all of the information will not be lost. As long as the bare minimum of hardware, keyboard mouse and monitor, is plugged in when booting the new computer, it should work.
leapinlew:
--- Quote from: Green Giant on September 24, 2007, 02:12:30 pm ---On servers this actually works even better as I have done this hundreds of times with many different operating systems on several types of servers. Suse has many problems but Windows always worked great.
--- End quote ---
On Windows Servers this is just about the worst thing you can do. Seeing as how many servers require you to install the controller during setup and windows won't have the drivers native. This is when you need a floppy... and ONLY A FLOPPY (goofy crap).
--- Quote from: Green Giant on September 24, 2007, 02:12:30 pm ---That is why I said in the past it would have caused problems.
--- End quote ---
In the past we didn't have plug and pray and this wasn't an issue at all.
--- Quote from: Green Giant on September 24, 2007, 02:12:30 pm ---it should work.
--- End quote ---
Famous last words.
I'm glad you got everything to work Green Giant. I'm not calling you a liar, just saying my experience has been different. Completely different.
MrMojoZ:
--- Quote from: Green Giant on September 24, 2007, 02:12:30 pm ---
I have done this 8 or 9 times all with motherboards built in the last few years with success on them all. On servers this actually works even better as I have done this hundreds of times with many different operating systems on several types of servers.
--- End quote ---
And I've done it hundreds of times with Windows XP, we are not discussing other operating systems. IT DOES NOT ALWAYS WORK. The other posters in this thread can back that up.