New PC, mobo won't recognize older PC HD.

[pirahna1]

Ok, so here's my dilemma. I just pieced together a new pc, and as far as I can tell everything is hooked up properly. I double checked everything.

Now I have two hard drives. A new and old one. The old one is from my current PC (P4 1.6gig etc, not too old), has all my info and Windows XP. My new drive is empty of course.

When I boot up my new computer it brings up the normal startup screens, passes the mobo screen with the bios access keys, then comes to the windows startup promp thingy. It says Windows was incorrectly shut down, how would you like to start windows: Normal, Safe Mode, Safe Mode w/ Networking, etc.

When I click anything at all, it proceeds to TRY and boot windows but fails, it just goes from that screen and basically restarts. It just loops. I put my old HD back into my old PC and it boots fine, it just seems like my new mobo doesnt want to boot from it.

I took that old HD out and tried to boot the PC w/ only the new drive and a copy of Vista Basic in the DVD drive and it boots to Vista fine. I just don't want to run 2 seperate OSs and I really dont want to run Vista unless I have to. Even then I stilll need all my info off of my old drive and since this mobo is having problems with that, I still need help.

Any kind of advice would be awesome. Thanks in advance!

[Cephius]

Have you tried booting it with only the old HDD hooked up (ie disconnect the new one). Are they SATA or IDE? Are the pins set to CS (Cable Select - shouldn't matter with SATA but good practice anyway) on the old HDD? If it's SATA, double check that the second or whatever port that you're using for the old hdd is enabled in the BIOS. Try with a different cable, do the works to try to narrow down the problem a bit.

[pirahna1]

Old HD is IDE, new HD is SATA. I tried booting it with both drives, and with only 1 drive (once w/ the older IDE, once w/ the newer SATA). For the older drive I'm using the same cable that I use in my older PC. Tried a newer cable too. Both cables work fine in my old PC, but don't help on the newer PC.

Are the pins set to CS (Cable Select - shouldn't matter with SATA but good practice anyway) on the old HDD?

Dunno what that is.

[Snowknight26]

If the old HD won't boot because, for short, you have a new mobo. (Long explanation: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/824125) You either have to reinstall Windows or repair the installation using the XP CD and the recovery console.

[pirahna1]

Forgot to mention, my older PC I got from my friend, he pirated XP, so I have no XP reinstall CDs. I only have the Vista DVD that came w/ my girlfriends new store-PC. Which I really don't want to resort to.

Plus the old HD works fine in the old PC, I don't understand why it won't jive with the new PC.

[Snowknight26]

*busts out the long explanation*

Your friend's computer had a different hardware abstract layer (HAL) which directly affects your Windows installation. Replacing the hardware, or in your case, swapping the harddrive to the new PC, changes HAL. Normally, up to 7 changes to HAL are acceptable before you have to reinstall/recover.

But I only did one change!, you cry. Technically, no, you did more. You replaced IDE controllers, BIOS, southbridge, mobo, video card, PCI cards, etc. Therefore, reinstall/recover is the only option.

[Cephius]

You can do the steps in the above post but honestly I swap hard drives all the time at work from computer to computer and there are rarely issues except in very old computers. That said we mostly use Dells and there are still occasional problems but nothing like a loop like you described. Anyway, there are pins on the back of the hard drive (between where you plug in the power cable and IDE cable) with a cable cover thing (sorry the technical term escapes me) that covers two of the pins. This was used years ago to set primary and slave hard drives but these days they should (generally) be set to CS. Anyway, this probably isnt the cause of the problem, but double check anyway. My other advice would be to double check the BIOS settings and make sure that a) your mobo correctly identifies the old hard drive and b) is set to boot from it and only it. Hope this helps, if it doesn't try the fix in the above post ...

[Snowknight26]

Boot into safe mode and see what it stops at. If its something about the SOFTWARE, SYSTEM, or SECURITY file, you need to reinstall/recover.

[pirahna1]

I'll have to check the pins on the back of the older HD, using it now. When I had it in the newer PC, the BIOS saw it, and all the info on it (size, etc all the stuff bios knows), and I'm 99.9% sure it was set to master.

If this doesn't work, is there anything I can do that doesn't require a Windows CD? Or is there anywhere I can torrent it so it can pass the recovery steps needed to make my old HD work w/ my mobo?

EDIT: When I boot into safe mode it brings up tons of lines of code then just restarts again and continues to loop.

[Snowknight26]

Try, somehow, to see what the last line says. Got a camera laying around?

[Killgannon]

zomg snowknight knows what he's talking about for once

but yes what he says is correct, theres nothing you can do short of reinstall. you are changing too much hardware and windows will not accept that and will die on you (linux would be all like "k whatever" and still boot but you'd have to change modules and some kernel options... but it wouldnt be THIS bad) but windows wont work when you change stuff around like that basicly the windows installed on the harddrive right now is NOT compatible with the computer you are trying to run with it

[pirahna1]

I'll have to try and grab a screenshot tonight or tomorrow, my camera sucks, but I'll see what I can pull off. Classes are kickin my ass right now else I'd get it up sooner.

Also I realized my mother in law might have an XP disc. Using that would solve all my problems right?

[Killgannon]

if you do it correctly, yes.