Hi there,

Please guys, I need some support here.

A friend of mine visited me (we're living in different countries). While we chatting on the internet, before he visited me, he used to tell me that he was facing problems with his Windows XP Home Edition.

I told him that he can bring his HDD with him and I'll try to sort it out.

The problem now is that when i try to launch his XP (after i installed his HDD into my PC) XP fails to load because, I guess, our 2 PCs have different hardware installed, like the processor, ram, motherboard.

I took the decision of making clone of his hard drive so that if i want to make any serious system changes, i won't corrupt his XP.

Now, how can i launch his XP from the clone image i took using acronis? Is repairing his windows via the recovery console can solve it or what? Note that i want to keep the system intact as far as i can to figure out the problems he used to tell me he was facing.

you could use the recovery console if you knew what files you need to replace so you need to load the drive as a slave drive and what were the problems he was having

Interesting point, but how can I know the drivers NOT TO LOAD? or you what do you mean by "files"?
I think i read something like this somewhere.

I was thinking of replacing some system files related to the hardware he has.

Regarding the problems he spoke to me about, they were always related to paypal and ebay websites where he couldn't access his account and page pops into his face saying "the following page couldn't be loaded". I thought it was a spyware or something, so, i scanned it using by antivirus and as a surprise, his HDD was clean. When i took the decision to use his HDD as MASTER, XP failed to load.
problems never end

"The problem now is that when i try to launch his XP (after i installed his HDD into my PC) XP fails to load because, I guess, our 2 PCs have different hardware installed, like the processor, ram, motherboard"...

You really would have been better off to have your freiend's whole computer to troubleshoot the system problem. It is not wise to install a drive with an OS from another machine. Cloning the drive will do nothing to fix this problem. You could try a "repair" but as you already found out, this doesn't work very well. Your friend can buy another hard drive and install the OS clean on his system