[str8one77]

iam trying to put an older gateway hard drive in a new compaq box both drives are running xp and i can only get it up in safe mode i got all the drivers in but it just wont boot normal heeellllp

[Chief_Suicide]

If you are taking a hard drive from a Gateway PC, with Windows XP installed with the hardware on the Gateway, you may never get this to work.

I have seen XP boot on one system when it was installed in another, but you are asking for all kind of problems. I recommend formatting the drive and starting over.

If you are just 'adding' the old drive, then I there shouldn't be a problem unless you have the 'master' 'slave' jumpers messed up and it is trying to boot off the old drive and not the original Compaq drive.

Hope this helps.

[hobot]

Mod Parent Up.

He is right, I have never seen a fully installed WinXP be pulled from one machine and put in another without incident, though if you do not want to reformat, sometimes an auto repair will helo

Insert windows xp cd;
boot from it;
goto install winxp;
and if it is the same version of the install it should offer an automatic repair option.

I have seen this happen when i change a video card, much less the whole computer.