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Thread: [RESOLVED] Understanding bootable hard drives

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    Resolved [RESOLVED] Understanding bootable hard drives

    I know that a Windows OS created on one PC will not run on another PC if the two PCs are not exactly the same

    By just experimenting around I have taken a HD from one PC and mounted it in another. Now, sometimes nothing happens; I just get a black screen with a blinking cursor and other times it brings up the Windows OS but it just doesn't do anything (like it freezes as soon as I see the Welcome message) or it might even go into the desktop but I can't do anything like click on an icon or open up Windows Explorer

    My question is what is it that prevents the OS from running on a different PC. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the configurations and other things but what exactly is it
    Last edited by I Love VB6; Oct 24th, 2016 at 12:17 PM.

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    Administrator Steve R Jones's Avatar
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    Re: Understanding bootable hard drives

    DRIVERS. You've heard the term Drivers... Those files that control all of the hardware...

    When you load an OS that have drivers for one video card and that card is no where to be found them it will choke.
    Wi-fi went down for five minutes, so I had to talk to my family....They seem like nice people.

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    Re: Understanding bootable hard drives

    Chipset drivers are the ones that usually cause it to fail to even boot. Mismatched video driver should often cause it to fall back to generic VGA when it can't find one for the current graphics chip. Don't think I've seen where you can get all the way to the desktop and then not be able to do anything.

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    Re: Understanding bootable hard drives

    There are times when I attempt to boot I will get a black screen with a blinking white cursor and it just sits there with no response to any keys (even Ctrl-Alt-Del wont work). I once had about four PCs running at the same time and each one had one or more OS's. I had to trash the PCs but I kept the hard drives and now I'm just testing them to see if I can bring up the OS's but of course I can't. I think maybe one reason I was able to get to the desktop is perhaps the PC that HD was on was very close to the one I'm using now (same make and model ) but I'm not positive if that is the sole reason. Most of the times I either get a black screen or I get to the Welcome screen but that's all the further it goes. Of course, I can mount these HDs as slaves and pull off the data. Personally I think it's a piss-poor design that Windows can't boot on other machines.

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    Re: Understanding bootable hard drives

    I guess they didn't foresee swapping out a motherboard for a totally unrelated one to be that common of an issue. Replacing a graphics card on the other hand, yes, which is why it normally will downgrade to standard VGA if the driver it has fails. I'm not sure how to do it, but I'd guess there's a way to pre-load a bunch of different chipset drivers for the various flavors of PCs a corporation may have, essentially duplicating what the original Setup program does. I don't see how their standard images would work on dissimilar hardware otherwise.

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    Re: Understanding bootable hard drives

    My problem is I had this Windows XP system on a PC with tons of software products installed and many of them were installed directly from various web sites so I do not have the means to re-install them and I don't have any idea where I got them. The PC roasted when I shorted it out but the hard drive and all the devices are still good; only the MB cooked so I needed a way to take the entire HD and bring up the XP system on a good PC so I could get back to the applications that were installed and continue on with my tasks. I can rebuild a lot of that system but not the important stuff I need. The man at the PC Computer store said he could get a replacement MB and install it in the same box and that would probably allow the HD to boot the XP system again since all the other devices are still there although he didn't want to guarantee it. It would cost 280.00 US dollars to see if it works. If it does, great; if not then I have wasted the money on a PC I don't need
    Last edited by I Love VB6; Oct 26th, 2016 at 05:58 PM.

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    PowerPoster Arnoutdv's Avatar
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    Re: Understanding bootable hard drives

    The way you installed and manage your software collection is always going to get in you in trouble.
    What if you need to do a re-install of windows or disk gets corrupted.
    If you don't save the original installation/setup packages of the software you use then you at the end you will always be in trouble.

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    Re: Understanding bootable hard drives

    I understand your issue, but can't say I've ever wasted the time trying to get it to work. First thing I would do is make an image of your old HD so you at least have a backup of it if something should happen. Then I would try to put that drive in whatever PC but boot from XP CD and attempt a repair and see if that gets you anywhere. I'm sure there are others out there with the same problem (it is fairly common after all) that have managed to get it working again, but when I faced that it wasn't worth my effort as I really only needed the data files.

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    Re: Understanding bootable hard drives

    Quote Originally Posted by topshot View Post
    I understand your issue, but can't say I've ever wasted the time trying to get it to work. First thing I would do is make an image of your old HD so you at least have a backup of it if something should happen. Then I would try to put that drive in whatever PC but boot from XP CD and attempt a repair and see if that gets you anywhere. I'm sure there are others out there with the same problem (it is fairly common after all) that have managed to get it working again, but when I faced that it wasn't worth my effort as I really only needed the data files.
    I did what you suggested and it worked perfectly. Excellent advice - thanks a million

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    Re: Understanding bootable hard drives

    Quote Originally Posted by I Love VB6 View Post
    I did what you suggested and it worked perfectly. Excellent advice - thanks a million
    Awesome. Glad to know it really worked. LOL

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