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We've got two PCs with different motherboards, graphic cards, HDDs, etc.

  • PC1: HDD1: Maxtor - SATA - 240 GB - Win XP - Partition Drives C,D,E
  • PC2: HDD2: Samsung - SATA - 500 GB - Win 7 - Partition Drives C,D,E,F

Both HDDs have been bought almost 5 years ago.

Now I want to have the both hard drives in PC1.

I mounted and screwed the HDD2 on PC1 and plugged its SATA and power cables. (I'm almost sure I plugged them correctly.) When I booted the system, I entered the BIOS settings and set the first booting priority to HDD1 (win XP).

The Problem:

When the win XP loads (from HDD1), the desktop appears and the mouse is working. But when I start to click/right-click on anything, the mouse goes to the waiting symbol (sand glass) and nothing works! I can still move the mouse, but no clicks, nothing works. I wait for long, but no help. So I have to reset the PC physically. And then again and again this happens on each load of win XP. The only solution is to remove the HDD2 cables, which brings the system to the normal working conditions. (But again when I re-plug the HDD2 cables, again the win XP doesn't work, and freezes on desktop.)

I want to have access to the HDD2's files and documents from within the win XP.

Now what should I do?

Any help would be highly appreciated.

1 Answer 1

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NT(e.g. XP) is not like Win 9X so it won't just work when you do that.

If wanting to move a computer from CompA to CompB when the motherboard has a different chipset.

A)XP Repair Installation on B after the act. (i'm not sure if Win XP SP3 has repair installation)

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

B)Acronis has an option to make an image that can be written to a different comp.

C)There are ways to treat Win XP on CompA so that it transfers.

One way is changing an entry in device manager.

Another way is changing the HAL

Raymond mentions a way to treat it on CompA,, and a way to treat it after, on CompB.

https://www.raymond.cc/blog/move-windows-xp-hard-drive-or-change-motherboard-without-getting-blue-screen-of-death/

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/how-to-move-windows-xp-hard-disk-to-a-different-computer-or-motherboard-without-bsod.262885/

Personally though i've only done A. The xp repair installation after.

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  • Thanks @barlop for your quick reply. Actually, my problem is moving a win 7 HDD, not win XP. The PC1 has HDD1 with win XP installed on it, and it works OK. But when I plug the HDD2 (win 7) cables to the motherboard (so as to be able to access its files and documents from win XP), the win XP freezes.
    – Omid1989
    Mar 24, 2015 at 7:59
  • @Omid1989 i'm sure the acronis solution would still apply for moving win7 though acronis isn't free. Really to transfer data from a hard drive of one computer, into another.. the easiest ways are A)Windows file sharing or B)plugging it in externally with a SATA-USB adaptor.
    – barlop
    Mar 24, 2015 at 11:25
  • @Omid1989 I hope somebody else posts a better answer eg with more details
    – barlop
    Mar 24, 2015 at 11:27
  • Thanks @barlop for your comments. You're right. A SATA-2-USB adapter might be a better solution. But I'm looking for a permanent solution. Because I want to keep both HDDs in my PC, and boot which ever I like any time.
    – Omid1989
    Mar 24, 2015 at 11:39
  • @Omid1989 try the raymond link it involves device manager which is in 7 just as in xp
    – barlop
    Mar 24, 2015 at 12:26

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