Swapped Hard Drives

[blazingcomet]

Hi-
I am running Windows xp pro on a 2.0gig processor and recently bought a computer from a 'friend'. The computer he sold me has some serious issues with the video. Is not the cable or the video card-is somewhere in the motherboard. I am trying to put the hard drive and everything back into the other computer I was using(I am able to get a picture on the 'old' computer). The 'intel' screen comes up but then get a black screen with 'boot failure-system halted' at the top left of the screen.
I am able to get to BIOS and the IDE config says 'not installed' for the master drive. I am pretty sure I have everything plugged in correctly but wanted to see if there might be something else I am missing. I am very new to the 'hardware' side and would appreciate any help I can get.
thanks

[bentkey]

Well, I really can't tell from your description what exactly you have done. Are you trying to put the hard drive from the broken computer into your other computer as a second drive? Is the XP OS your current operating system in your Working computer? or is that from the broken computer?. If you can't see the drive in the bios, there are several possibilities. How big is the drive? How old is the computer you're trying to put it into? If you're adding it as a second drive, you probably need to reset the drive jumpers on the drive itself to clear a conflict. If it's a big drive and you're putting it into an old PC, your pc's bios may not be able to read drives that big. Give more specifics, and perhaps we can give you more explicit answers.

[blazingcomet]

The hard drive is an 80gig and yes-it is going from the 'broken' computer to the one I was using before getting the 'broken' one.
Trying to put it in the computer as the master drive and I have that connected correctly. I hadn't thought to look at the drive switch. Will do that when I get home from work.
It is a drive that was never in the 'old' computer. I had a 40 gig in there.
The 40 gig was 'ghosted' over into the 'broken' one- and then we decided to go with an 80 gig that my buddy was selling. So he came back into Lansing and 'ghosted' again from the 40 to the 80 and put that one in the 'broken' computer.
The reason for switching out hard drives(as well as the dvd and cd-r) is that there seems to be a serious problem with the 'broken' computer as far as video goes. I never had a problem with the video on the 'old' computerand was beginning to think it was the video card-bought new video card and still have problem. I get the 'no video connection' symbol onscreen and then nothing-no bootup( I do get the choose 'last known good config, safe mode or normal' option for boot up-no matter which I choose I get nothing). Anything else you need to know please ask. Not sure what other specifics you might need and this is probably already getting too 'windy'.

[bentkey]

OK, so you're swapping a 40 to a 80 gig drive. I still don't know how old your "old" machine is, but it probably is just incapable of reading a drive that large. For some of the "old" machines you can get bios updates that will allow it to read larger drives. Also you can get IDE addin PCI cards that will allow you to read larger drives. If you know what you have, you can get the information from the board manufacture's web site about how large a drive it can handle.

[blazingcomet]

I'm not real sure how old it is. It was a system that my husband put together and has been working GREAT for the part 3-4 yrs.

[bentkey]

I'm not real sure how old it is. It was a system that my husband put together and has been working GREAT for the part 3-4 yrs.

Not bad for humans, but "Long of Tooth" in computer years! :)

[blazingcomet]

ok-thanks for the help.
If I can find the spec sheet on it that'll probably help.
In the meantime will see if switching the drive switch helps at all.

[Kinseeker69]

Hi- I am running Windows xp pro on a 2.0gig processor and recently bought a computer from a 'friend'. The computer he sold me has some serious issues with the video. Is not the cable or the video card-is somewhere in the motherboard. I am trying to put the hard drive and everything back into the other computer I was using(I am able to get a picture on the 'old' computer). The 'intel' screen comes up but then get a black screen with 'boot failure-system halted' at the top left of the screen. I am able to get to BIOS and the IDE config says 'not installed' for the master drive. I am pretty sure I have everything plugged in correctly but wanted to see if there might be something else I am missing. I am very new to the 'hardware' side and would appreciate any help I can get. thanks

Check the jumpers on all Hard Drives they should either be in Master/Slave mode or cable select. Check with the HDD manufacturer for the jumper settings.

[dvr]

did you try and install a fresh copy of your OS?
that includes reformating your drive.

[blazingcomet]

Haven't tried installing fresh copy of OS yet. As to the switches, they should be in the master position but will check to make sure. I did find that I can boot the system into safe mode but not in regular mode. I tried 'last known good config' and it wouldn't boot. I tried a restore to the previous Sunday(a checkpoint) and still only can get it to boot in safe mode. I was able to check 'disk management' and it does 'see' the hard drive and says it is healthy'.
I am going to try a fresh install-before I do-what would be the best way to copy my pictures before I do?

[bentkey]

Well, if now it is being recognized by the system bios on startup, we have a whole different kettle of fish than we started out with. You wouldn't have gotten as far as you did if the jumper wasn't ok. When you change drive sizes that much, the whole drive geometry is different and windows may not be able to read it because it is addressing the space differently. You can save your installation though. I have to do this frequently when changing drives these days when I clone to a much larger drive. You need to do a repair install. To do this, boot to your installation CD when it asks if you what to repair or install, respond install. WindowsXP will look for existing copies of Windows on the machine before it proceeds. When it finds your existing install, it will ask if you want to repair or install. At THIS prompt, respond that you want to repair. When it finishes, you should be able to boot ok. You will need to reinstall all service packs afterwards though.

[blazingcomet]

Thanks for the info!! Will try ther repair tonight. If I am able to get it booted normally will let you know.

[antioed]

Sounds to me like the "Ghosting" method you're talking about might be causing this. If you can get into safe mode but get no display when booting "normally" you could try installing the video drivers for the "old" machine in safe mode...if the image that you took from the "broken" machine was set to load video drivers that aren't compatible with the "old" machine I think you could see these problems. An easy fix would be to reghost to the drive in the "old" machine after which the ghost image should re-configure all the hardware, assuming that when you talk about "ghosting" you're referring to Norton/Symantec Ghost.

[blazingcomet]

Thanks loads!! that was something that I wouldn't have thought to check or try, but now that I see it recommended it makes perfect sense.
Will let all know what happens.

[blazingcomet]

After the one time of being able to get the system to boot in 'safe mode', it then wouldn't boot again in any mode.
I couldn't get it to do ANYTHING!!
I do give my THANKS to all that tried to help me-I have given up and am having someone work on it. Luckily, this is a friend of mine that is a computer genius(my mother never thought one would be able to associate the word 'genius' to any of my friends :)
So this thread can probably be closed, just not sure if moderator is supposed to close

[abbasmj]

Check the jumper on the harddrive. It the jumper is on slave or cable select and you are trying to detect the harddrive on the primary hard drive channel then it will not work. Change the jumper from the back of the harddrive to Master and then see whether the BIOS detects the harddrive or not.