We apologize for the inconvenience......

[Dilworth]

I was trying to fix my friend's desktop computer that has frustrated me the most !! I took his 18GB drive out of his computer because i was having problems with installing windows XP on his hard drive. So, i plugged his drive on my computer and installed the windows XP professional SP 3, updated it, installed the anti virus software.

Now when i plugged the same hard drive on his computer instead of getting the normal windows back, i get the follwoing message:

We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this.

If your computer stopped responding, restarted unexpectedly, or was automatically shut down to protect your files and folders, choose Last Known Good Configuration to revert to the most recent settings that worked.

If a previous startup attempt was interrupted due to a power failure or because the Power or Reset button was pressed, or if you aren't sure what caused the problem, choose Start Windows
Normally.

Safe Mode
Safe Mode with Networking
Safe Mode with Command Prompt

Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked) Start Windows Normally

Use the up and down arrow keys to move the highlight to your choice.

Seconds until Windows starts: 30

If I SELECT any of the above options, it freezes his computer. I don't know what is going on because a fresh copy of windows XP is installed on the drive and even an anti virus (not it matter) is also installed and the drive had worked on my computer. But for some reason it is giving me hard time running the same drive on my friend's computer.

 

[Macboatmaster]

Well I am not surprised.
When you installed XP on your computer - on his hard drive, it configured XP for YOUR computer
It is not likely it will run on HIS computer.
Why can you not install it on his computer - what is the error message or difficulty

 

[Tmagic650]

You can't set up Windows on one computer and transfer that hard drive to another computer. You know that the hard drive is good, so just format it on your friends computer and install Windows fresh. If you can't do this, your friend's computer has other hardware issues. An 18GB hard drive may mean that your friends computer is very old

 

[Leeky]

What was stopping you from installing Windows with the hard drive installed in your friends computer?

 

[Macboatmaster]

Why can you not install it on his computer - what is the error message or difficulty

Is that not what I asked.

 

[b44g6]

Actully since windows XP sp2 u can install a windows in a computer and then transfer the harddrive to another, before sp2 u will get a blue screen,I know this because I tried it many times, anyway, for your friend's computer I would rather install windows 2000 or if u have experience with linux , because judging from the HDD space I think its pentium 2, which is damn OLD! and the windows installing will take forever,

 

[Leeky]

Actully since windows XP sp2 u can install a windows in a computer and then transfer the harddrive to another, before sp2 u will get a blue screen,I know this because I tried it many times, anyway, for your friend's computer I would rather install windows 2000 or if u have experience with linux , because judging from the HDD space I think its pentium 2, which is damn OLD! and the windows installing will take forever,

Err, no you can't. You might well be fortunate with two computers with similar specifications, but no Windows install is guaranteed, nor expected to work in another computer for one simple reason - Each Windows installation is tailored to the particular hardware of the computer its installed on, and since drivers differ for CPU's, and hardware for motherboards etc etc its unlikely they'll work.

If you have two almost identical computers then its possible you can get them to work, and its even possible with completely different hardware to get them working, but you'll spend plenty of time troubleshooting driver issues, removing incorrect ones, and then installing and configuring the right ones.

Your quite simply wasting your time using anything other than the intended computer for that reason.

As for your assumptions of hard disk space; You cannot assume anything, you have absolutely no information to make that assumption, and Windows 2000 as a recommendation is pure madness - Windows XP will be absolutely fine on even a 10GB partition as long as your careful with whats installed on top of the OS install.

 

[Macboatmaster]

b44g6.

I echo what has been said by "Leeky" and indeed repeat what I said, in my post 2.
Where do you think Windows finds its drivers from. Chipset, Audio, Graphics, Lan etc.
The ONLY way it will ever work, except by chance, is to uninstall the drivers, and then install the HDD on the computer and pray that it finds the drivers.