Ok so my friend has a computer he is dealing with.

Computer1 Dell: Older Dell Running XP, crashes and wont power up.

Computer2 Acer: Is comp 1's replacement we picked up. We got a new computer and wanted to put computer 1's hard drive in it. It came with vista so we took that drive out just to see if the comp would boot. It does in Safe mode and we put all the drivers for comp 2 on it and it works in safe mode without networking but nothing else. Won't boot into the normal windows and when we try w/networking it says we need to enter a Key? The fuck.


So does dell put anything on their os to stop you?

 

I guess my first question is why are you trying to use the old HD? You would be better off booting with the Acer's HD and putting the Dell HD in as a second (slave).

 

Or better yet, saving all the data that you need from the first hard drive, wiping it, and then putting it into the new computer and using it in slave configuration. Why are you moving XP to a Vista anyway? Is the Vista view that much better than XP?

 

Even if you get it to work, you will end up with all the same problems that the original PC had. More likely than not the crashing etc. was caused by problems with the XP installation and not a hardware problem.

 

Its a clubhouse PC for a community. It has security programs for people to get in and out...A LOT of users and we didn't want to sit there and reenter everything because the guy who did it won't be back for 8 days.

 

What key is it asking for?

 

activation key.

I am just looking for a better way of doing this. I dont know what security program was on there but he is saying it doesnt work with vista...I could have told his dumbass that...but he was saying he couldn't find a new XP PC. Now we just need a way to get XP and all the programs to work on the new computer.

 

Is it a legal copy of XP? If so, get the key from Microsoft.

The ugliest way to do it is the boot into safe mode on the new PC, go into device manager and remove all the devices. Then boot normally and install the correct drivers.

The best way is to install XP fresh on the new PC.

 

As Whiskers says, it sounds like the best (and ultimately "easiest") thing to do is to wipe Vista off the Acer and install a new XP OS on it if you need to use the programs and info from the Dell HD. Lots of programs aren't configured to run on Vista yet.

FWIW, Dell is loading new computers with XP as an alternative to Vista now, but you have to call them since that option wasn't in its on-line menu when I was looking for a laptop a month ago.

 

I ran into a similar situation. I hate Vista. My 6-year old Sony computer died, CPU gave up the ghost. Just bought a new HP at Circuit City but the HP came with Vista Premium pre-installed. The Sony was running XP.

Problem 1: I pulled the HD out of the Sony and installed it in an external case. When I plugged in this external HD using usb2.0 the Vista System recognized new hardware and said it installed the drivers but I can't locate it to get access to it.

Problem 2: I backed up my old XP system on an external HD (different than the one above). This HD Vista recognizes but when I navigate to "My Documents" on the external HD Vista doesn't let me copy them over to the new computer, says I'm not the "Owner" of the files. x 2

Problem 3: I tried installing Quicken 2007 on the new Vista computer. The installation went fine, but then Quicken 2007 wanted to upgrade from version 1 to version 5. I let it and the upgrade froze up. Now, when I try to start Quicken it says the file doesn't exist. When I try to install Quicken, it says Quicken is already installed. When I try to uninstall Quicken, it can't find the Qucken files to uninstall. x 3


AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH HHHHH!!!!!!!!

/rant

 

1 - got to go into disk manager - Right Click My Computer, Then Manage (accept warning), Disk Management and assign it a drive letter.

2. Go to the properties of the folder and check security.

3. Go to the registry (regedit from the start menu) - search and delete all Quicken references and then reinstall Quicken.

 

^^ If these work ...