Hard Drive Works but not where I want it - Major Headache

[zaineyma]

Hello,

I have a Dell Diemnsion 4550 Desktop. I purchased a Maxtor DiamondMax 21 IDE Internal Hard Drive from my local store. I built the hard drive with Windows XP to another machine. I then inserted the hard drive into the Dell machine and it starts to boot up, then it gets to the screen where you can select Safe Mode etc, I click on the Start Windows Normally option. It then goes to a blank black screen and after a few seconds it reboots and it keeps doing this. I tried Safe Mode but the same happens. Now, this hard drive works perfectly fine in another machine and other hard drives I have work fine in the Dell Desktop. I am at my wits end. The Dell machine is fine as other hard drives work in it, the Hard Drive in question works fine in another machine. Any ideas anyone? I am at my wits end!
Please advise of your suggestions and many thanks in advance
Ray

 

[vacunita]

I built the hard drive with Windows XP to another machine. I then inserted the hard drive into the Dell machine and it starts to boot up, then it gets to the screen where you can select Safe Mode etc, I click on the Start Windows Normally option. It then goes to a blank black screen and after a few seconds it reboots and it keeps doing this. I tried Safe Mode but the same happens

Unless the machines in question are exactly the same, down to every piece of hardware, then that is expected behaviour.


Normally you can't expect a Windows installation from one machine to work on another machine. The hardware change alone would make that impossible.

You will have to boot from there Windows CD and do a repair install to get Windows to load in this machine.

After that if you decide to put the drive back into the old machine it will likely not boot at all. As again the Hardware changes would inhibit that.


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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.