Problems swapping Hard Drive

[Martay]

Hi All

I have a new PC, so I have decided to donate my former system to my brother. I am keeping my former 120GB HDD, and so have put his former HDD (a 2001 Maxtor 80GB HDD) into the former PC.

The BIOS is detecting the new hard drive, but I'm getting the blue screen of death when turning the PC on (after getting the option of booting in safe mode - though whatever mode I boot in is ineffective). While reformatting wouldn't be too much of a hardship, I'd rather not do it - can anyone here suggest any solutions to the problem?

Thanks in advance for any help! (And apologies if this is in the wrong place!)

 

[kitty500cat]

Which system won't detect which drive? Also, what interface are the drives (SATA, IDE, etc.)?
kitty500cat

 

[Martay]

My old system won't detect my brothers old 80GB drive. It is an IDE drive.

 

[Tedster]

you cannot use an operating system set for one machine onto another. The new computer cannot read the old drive with the OS on it. As it is, the old hard drive OS is set for the old system. Windows customizes itself for the computer it is installed on. You will need to format and install the OS onto the hard drive as it is. You can retrieve the data off of it by putting it back into the original computer.

 

[Martay]

Ah, makes sense! I was sure I have managed it in the past, but having thought about it, I now recall I always put the second HDD in as a slave rather than a master.

Luckily, we reformatted the old HDD only a few weeks ago, so backing up anything important shouldn't take too long at all!