Hard Drive Switch to different Operating System

My friend asked be whether or not he could take his hard drive out of his computer, operating system Windows XP Home, and place it into another computer, operating system Vista.

As I have no idea I would appreciate hearing from the experts on the forum. Any information that I can pass on to him would be most appreciated. And, as always, I would thank you in advance.

John

 

The Vista OS will boot as normal, recognize the new hardrive ... but the XP wont have been installed as a bootable operating system. Make sure he doesn't switch the booting priority - don't let the XP drive have Master jumper position. There is a problem that can arise introducing XP to new hardware, a motherboard, for example. Check out "MUP.sys slow boot up" on google. This is a nightmare to fix (rarely solved) it can slow boot on the operating system up to like 4 or 5 mins sometimes, plus, Microsoft will ask to activate Windows as you've switched the XP hardware set up.

 

Keyboard Commander thank you very much for your reply. I am going to recommend to my friend that he not try to do this. I believe it to be too technical for him to try. I know I wouldn't attempt it. Again, thank you.

John

 

I've done it several times but it is quite technical. You need to install storage controller drivers to a non-booting OS and use a boot manager to keep the OS independent of each other.

 

Huh?

I think there's some misunderstanding here. It seems to me we are merely taking the old XP drive and installing it AS A SECOND DRIVE into the Vista system. This does NOT require installing any controller drivers and you don't need any boot managers. The original drive remains as C drive and, assuming no partitions or other hard drives, the old XP drive becomes the D drive. This is simply a matter of powering off the computer, unplugging from the wall, opening the case, touch bare metal to discharge static, set jumper, mount the drive, connect the power connector, connect the data cable, close every thing up and boot.

Every file on the XP drive (now the D drive) can be accessed with NO problems. As Keyboard_Commando correctly noted, XP will not be the bootable OS. It must also be noted that any programs installed on that XP drive will no longer be "installed" - that is, Vista will not be aware of them as they are not configured in Vista's Registry. All the data files (documents, photos, etc.) are there, the programs (such as Word or Excel) will not run as Vista will not know how. They will have to be reinstalled.

 

Bill,

No, I was taking a HD from one computer, removing the HD from a second computer and attaching the first HD into the second computer. There is only one HD in the new computer.

I've also done the "same" thing by restoring an image from the old computer to a blank HD in the new computer. The old HD computer was IDE and the new HD computer was SATA.


Edit... I now see what you mean. I wasn't addressing jpcummins' question. Apologies.

 

No problem.