New computer old hard drive

[trichos]

I got a new barebones computer system and was going to use my two hard drives from my old PC. They are installed, but Windows XP professional won't load. Any suggestions? I assume I could just reinstall windows xp but don't want to risk losing unbacked up info (the old PC died so I could backup). I figure the problem has to do with the old configuration of XP. It won't even load in safe mode and I have no clue what to do on the recovery console area of xp installation.

 

[Varun]

You could try a repair install.

 

[x2plasma]

Find another computer to run that drive as the second and back up your stuff. Any kind of repair install will erase whatever is in the My Documents folder (in my experience anyway). It's always best to do a fresh install going from one system to another with different hardware. You just end up having less issues later.

edit: of course running as a slave on another system you won't be able to access your My Documents folder anyway thanks to MS security with user accounts.

 

[tigertunes]

do you not have your old comp to back up what files you need and just format the drives after ?

 

[rasczak]

Originally posted by: tigertunes
do you not have your old comp to back up what files you need and just format the drives after ?

I assume I could just reinstall windows xp but don't want to risk losing unbacked up info (the old PC died so I could backup).

no old PC, it died.

 

[BigfootsMonk]

Originally posted by: x2plasma
edit: of course running as a slave on another system you won't be able to access your My Documents folder anyway thanks to MS security with user accounts.

Not true. All you have to do is take ownership, and this might be your best solution also, to use your HDD with files on it as the slave and get another HDD with a fresh XP install.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q308421&

 

[x2plasma]

Originally posted by: BigfootsMonk

Originally posted by: x2plasma
edit: of course running as a slave on another system you won't be able to access your My Documents folder anyway thanks to MS security with user accounts.

Not true. All you have to do is take ownership, and this might be your best solution also, to use your HDD with files on it as the slave and get another HDD with a fresh XP install.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q308421&

always good to learn something new