Move XP to another computer
Wes Groleau
for college and can't wait for shipping for hinges I could install.
Doesn't want to pay $40 for overnight, or $70 for a local repair,
so instead (go figure), he paid $300 for a Fujitsu Lifebook.
With Vista.
Beside the fact of Vista's reputation, there's also the issue
of learning it AND reinstalling his various apps without a lot
of time.
So, we want to swap hard drives.
LOTS of stuff on the web contradicting each other. Some pages even
contradict themselves, like a Microsoft KB that says basically,
"It can't be done, and here's how to do it" followed by a lot of
registry hacking that I wouldn't touch even if I understood it.
After reading a few, though, and talking with the tech where he
bought the thing, I get the feeling that the thing to do is
boot from an XP CD and choose the repair option.
I have a legal XP CD from my MSDN license. It starts to boot up,
and I know it is the CD by the sounds and the fact that some of
the screens I recognize from other installs. BUT, eventually it
stops with the error that I would expect if I were trying to boot
from the hard drive.
In other words, the _CD_ is getting the error that it is supposed
to fix on the hard drive. The hard drive won't even get that far,
they say because it's a different IDE controller. Which puzzles me,
because how can you boot from a drive if reading the drive depends on
drivers that are on the drive? :-)
ANYWAY, looking for advice.....
--
Wes Groleau
There are two types of people in the world …
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett?itemid=1157
philo
If the old machine has a *non* OEM version of XP on it (which is
doubtful) and a *non* OEM cd of the same version you could , in theory
perform a repair install...but since the machine is newer, there is a
good chance you'd never be able to get drivers.
so, the best you can do is reinstall the apps and copy the data over
from the old drive
Obviously, buying a machine with Vista on it was a very poor lapse in
judgment...
anyway, I was young once too and you learn by your mistakes
Java Jive
over the years. Most of my knowledge was acquired with Windows 2000,
but, since Windows 2000 & XP are the same version number (5), I'm
reasonably certain that what follows will apply equally to XP ...
On Sat, 30 Apr 2011 13:48:06 -0400, Wes Groleau
<Grolea...@FreeShell.org> wrote:
> Son's HP laptop broke both hinges. Needs machine (and its contents)
> for college and can't wait for shipping for hinges I could install.
>
> Doesn't want to pay $40 for overnight, or $70 for a local repair,
> so instead (go figure), he paid $300 for a Fujitsu Lifebook.
> With Vista.
Doh!
> Beside the fact of Vista's reputation, there's also the issue
> of learning it AND reinstalling his various apps without a lot
> of time.
>
> So, we want to swap hard drives.
When Windows boots, the process goes something like as follows (I'll
list all the stages for completeness of understanding, but we're only
interested in the last two steps in the process);
0) Basic-Input-Output System (BIOS) does a Power On Self-Test (POST),
during which time familiar messages such as the graphics boot logo and
memory test appear on the screen.
1) When BIOS is ready, it looks for the first boot drive (which
normally these days can be chosen by changing settings in the BIOS)
and reads the very first sector of that drive, the Master Boot Record
(MBR).
2) The MBR contains a short generic loader program in the beginning
of the sector and the drive's partition table towards the end. The
MBR's loader code reads the partition table looking for the first
(usually the only) partition marked Active, and reads the very first
sector from that partition, the Partition Boot Record (PBR).
3) The PBR contains an OS-specific loader and details specific to the
partition. The PBR's loader boots the OS in a way that is specific to
the OS in the partition. With Windows 2000/XP, it loads boot drivers
specific to the hardware found at install time, so that it can read
the disks(*), and there may well be graphics boot drivers as well, so
that it can write to the screen.
4) These boot drivers are then used to load and run the OS.
* You may be wondering why Windows needs special drivers to read the
disks, when the BIOS was able to do it without. The answer is that
all disks, at least all that I've encountered, support being read by
the BIOS using a standard Interrupt call #13h (IMS), but this is very
slow. Even so, if it can't find a bootable disk by any other method,
you'd've thought that Windows would be prepared to take you as far as
Safe Mode using Int #13h, so that you could then install the required
drivers to allow Windows to boot normally. But, however much it would
seem to make sense to allow for that possibility, it doesn't. It
insists that it has no knowledge of any other type of disk controller
other than that in the hardware it was originally installed, so if you
move the system disk to another machine which needs a different boot
driver to read the disks, you'll likely get a 'Blue Screen Of Death'
(BSOD) error such as 0x0000007B "Inaccessible Boot Device".
> I have a legal XP CD from my MSDN license. It starts to boot up,
> and I know it is the CD by the sounds and the fact that some of
> the screens I recognize from other installs. BUT, eventually it
> stops with the error that I would expect if I were trying to boot
> from the hard drive.
If it's the same as Windows 2000, immediately after the CD boots into
the blue installation screen, there is message across the top saying
something like: "Press F6 to install extra installation drivers"
(don't blink or you'll miss it). If then you press F6, what is
expected is that you have a floppy with suitable boot drivers and a
text file called TXTSETUP.OEM, similar in layout to, but unfortunately
not exactly the same as, an INF file. (W7, and therefore probably
VISTA, will accept the standard INF file, which is much more
convenient, but the mechanism to get it to read the floppy is a lot
less so).
Therefore, unless you can find one for the new laptop's motheboard or
chipset, you're probably going to have to write your own TXTSETUP.OEM
file and copy it and the required driver files to the root of a
floppy, or perhaps a USB stick. I'd advise searching the MS site for
an official explanation of the required format, but in case it helps
I've appended one of my own creation below. However, please note that
I can't guarantee that it's correct and would work, as I can't recall
ever actually using it - it turned out that the particular PIII for
which it was intended just couldn't boot from a USB drive, so I never
got a chance to test it!
;***************************************************************************
;***************************************************************************
; ** Filename: TxtSetup.OEM
;***************************************************************************
;***************************************************************************
[Disks]
disk1 = "Belkin USB 2.0 High Speed Host Controller driver",
ousbehci.sys, \
[Defaults]
scsi = BelkinUSB2
;----------- Component Section -----------
[scsi]
BelkinUSB2 = "Belkin USB 2.0 High Speed Host Controller"
;-------------------------------------------
[Files.scsi.BelkinUSB2]
driver = disk1, ousbehci.sys, ousbehci
driver = disk1, ousb2hub.sys, ousb2hub
inf = disk1, ousb2.inf
; catalog = disk1,
;-------------------------------------------
[Config.ousbehci]
value = "", tag, REG_DWORD, 12
value = "", ErrorControl, REG_DWORD, 1
value = "", Group, REG_SZ, "Base"
value = "", Start, REG_DWORD, 2
value = "", Type, REG_DWORD, 1
[Config.ousb2hub]
value = "", tag, REG_DWORD, 13
value = "", ErrorControl, REG_DWORD, 1
value = "", Group, REG_SZ, "Base"
value = "", Start, REG_DWORD, 3
value = "", Type, REG_DWORD, 1
;-------------------------------------------------------
[HardwareIds.scsi.BelkinUSB2]
id = "PCI\VEN_1033&DEV_00E0&SUBSYS_00021799","ousbehci"
id = "USB2\VID_050D&PID_0221","ousb2hub"
id = "USB2\VID_050D&PID_0224","ousb2hub"
--
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Wes Groleau
> [skipping ahead]
> insists that it has no knowledge of any other type of disk controller
> other than that in the hardware it was originally installed, so if you
> move the system disk to another machine which needs a different boot
> driver to read the disks, you'll likely get a 'Blue Screen Of Death'
> (BSOD) error such as 0x0000007B "Inaccessible Boot Device".
I expected that when trying to boot from the swapped hard drive,
to be fixed by booting from an install CD and doing a repair
instead of an install. But (trying to) use the hard drive
gets a character-type display with only an underscore in the
upper-left. CD gets most of the way through booting, i.e.,
loading all sorts of drivers, most clearly not being needed
for the hardware, and then says something is seriously wrong,
0x0000007B
> If it's the same as Windows 2000, immediately after the CD boots into
> the blue installation screen, there is message across the top saying
Doesn't get that far. I checked the CD on my Mac, and apparently
it's not my MSDN CD. It looks like a normal install CD, except that
the volume name is HPSETUP. I never had an HP, so I'm not sure where
it came from. But that explains why it didn't work.
> something like: "Press F6 to install extra installation drivers"
> (don't blink or you'll miss it). If then you press F6, what is
> expected is that you have a floppy with suitable boot drivers and a
> text file called TXTSETUP.OEM, similar in layout to, but unfortunately
> not exactly the same as, an INF file. (W7, and therefore probably
> VISTA, will accept the standard INF file, which is much more
> convenient, but the mechanism to get it to read the floppy is a lot
> less so).
Considering it has no floppy, a very lot less convenient.
> Therefore, unless you can find one for the new laptop's motheboard or
> chipset, you're probably going to have to write your own TXTSETUP.OEM
Thanks, but I do far too much of that kind of hacking at work.
I'm not going to do it at home to bail out a twenty-year-old whom
I advised another approach. Plus, I also pointed out to him
that he can get Windows Seven _legally_ for twenty bucks
through the college's special contract with Microsoft.
Twenty bucks too much to pay to fix a three hundred dollar
mistake? Apparently--he dug out his Office disks and
is installing it on the new box. Plans to do the same
for his Comp. Sci. IDE.
Thanks for trying to help us out. Too bad he prefers
using money over using patience. :-)
Avatar
<Grolea...@freeshell.org> wrote:
> On 05-01-2011 16:21, Java Jive wrote:
>> [skipping ahead]
>> insists that it has no knowledge of any other type of disk controller
>> other than that in the hardware it was originally installed, so if you
>> move the system disk to another machine which needs a different boot
>> driver to read the disks, you'll likely get a 'Blue Screen Of Death'
>> (BSOD) error such as 0x0000007B "Inaccessible Boot Device".
>
> I expected that when trying to boot from the swapped hard drive,
> to be fixed by booting from an install CD and doing a repair
> instead of an install. But (trying to) use the hard drive
> gets a character-type display with only an underscore in the
> upper-left. CD gets most of the way through booting, i.e.,
> loading all sorts of drivers, most clearly not being needed
> for the hardware, and then says something is seriously wrong,
> 0x0000007B
>
>> If it's the same as Windows 2000, immediately after the CD boots into
>> the blue installation screen, there is message across the top saying
>
> Doesn't get that far. I checked the CD on my Mac, and apparently
> it's not my MSDN CD. It looks like a normal install CD, except that
> the volume name is HPSETUP. I never had an HP, so I'm not sure where
> it came from. But that explains why it didn't work.
Of course you have an HP!
You started this discussion stating that the HP laptop broke its hinges!
:-)
>
>> something like: "Press F6 to install extra installation drivers"
>> (don't blink or you'll miss it). If then you press F6, what is
>> expected is that you have a floppy with suitable boot drivers and a
>> text file called TXTSETUP.OEM, similar in layout to, but unfortunately
>> not exactly the same as, an INF file. (W7, and therefore probably
>> VISTA, will accept the standard INF file, which is much more
>> convenient, but the mechanism to get it to read the floppy is a lot
>> less so).
>
> Considering it has no floppy, a very lot less convenient.
>
>> Therefore, unless you can find one for the new laptop's motheboard or
>> chipset, you're probably going to have to write your own TXTSETUP.OEM
>
> Thanks, but I do far too much of that kind of hacking at work.
> I'm not going to do it at home to bail out a twenty-year-old whom
> I advised another approach. Plus, I also pointed out to him
> that he can get Windows Seven _legally_ for twenty bucks
> through the college's special contract with Microsoft.
>
> Twenty bucks too much to pay to fix a three hundred dollar
> mistake? Apparently--he dug out his Office disks and
> is installing it on the new box. Plans to do the same
> for his Comp. Sci. IDE.
>
> Thanks for trying to help us out. Too bad he prefers
> using money over using patience. :-)
>
--
Using Opera's revolutionary email client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Wes Groleau
> Of course you have an HP!
> You started this discussion stating that the HP laptop broke its hinges!
No, I started this thread with "_Son's_ HP laptop broke both hinges"