Used HD swap ?'s

[michaelbenton]

My name is MicHAeL and I am 1st year IT student with all sorts of projects, just not enough brains to do them yet. Luckily I've found that people in the computers biz like to help each other.
I transplanted used HD in another used machine. Does not boot, not really surprised. What can I do to make this work? Is it possible to boot the HD from different computer without reinstalling software?


Thank you for all your comments
MicHAel

[oz]

What can I do to make this work? Is it possible to boot the HD from different computer without reinstalling software?

Welcome to the forums!

Is the hard drive in question known to be good?

What operating system and version currently reside on the drive?

Did the current OS have any issues that kept it from booting when it was installed on the other machine?

In the long run, it's probably better, easier, and faster to format the drive and then install the latest version of your favorite Linux distribution on it.

That said, I have booted hard drives that came from other Linux machines in the past.

Let us know how it goes.

[michaelbenton]

Thank you for your comments. I will try to answer the questions to the best of my knowledge.
1. The HD is known to work in the prior machine.
2. Windows xp
3. I know of no issues that prevented if from booting

The first error I see after the Compaq screen and before anything else happens: "Non-System disk of disk error replace and strike any key"
Is there a way to test the HD? I have a fedora core 5 live cd and a Knoppix live cd somewhere.

[oz]

No, a swapped hard drive with Windows on it is not likely to boot properly on first boot unless the drive is put into a computer with the same, or similar hardware.

I'd advise reinstalling Windows from scratch, or much better than that, simply install Linux on it.

[michaelbenton]

Okay I've found that the HD is not being found so what do I do next to format with linux

[oz]

Download the ISO file for the distribution of your choice, burn it to a blank CD/DVD, and then boot your computer with it to start the Linux installer.

Here's a HowTo you can follow for the proper steps to achieve the above:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ins...ll-cd-dvd.html

[Jonathan183]

The first error I see after the Compaq screen and before anything else happens: "Non-System disk of disk error replace and strike any key"

That could be the boot loader is not configured ... did the hard drive come out of a PC with multiple hard drives? or a system which booted direct from a network?

You can boot from the Knoppix live CD and check the hard drive contents, but as Ozar said ... unless the hardware matches getting the OS to work properly without a re-install is very unlikely