No boot after pc upgrade

[mkhf]

Hello, I built a new pc with all new components except vid card and used my old hard drive. After completion it would run for 20 secs. and shut off. No beeps. Finally called a shop and was told xp would not allow use of old h.d. To many changes. Had to swap all back and buy another copy of xp for new pc. Is there a way to use old H.D. and upgrade for performance? I still want to upgrade the original pc and use my hard drive with my legal copy of xp.

 

[wolluf]

If you've a licence, then yes - you may just need to reactivate XP (depending on extent of changes to older PC), or it may just continue. If you change motherboard, likely will need to reactivate.

 

[Frank4d]

I have never had a problem upgrading a MOBO, video card, CDROM drive, memory, ethernet card, etc with Windows XP. Even changing them all at once. At worst... Windows redetects all hardware devices and reports "everything in you system has changed... you need to re-activate Windows XP" (paraphrasing).

I suspect if the PC runs 20 seconds and then shuts off... your CPU heatsink is not fitted properly or the fan is not plugged in.

 

[sysadminguru]

No beeps in BIOS could mean a bad Video Card or Mobo depending on the manufacture.
Look up beep count codes for your mobo.
I have installed XP dozens of times on multiple HDD and everything runs fine except you have to re-activate.
you can make up to 7 changes to your system before reactivation is required but I have found that just replacing your HDD is enough, some how the OS recognizes the make and model and S/N of the HDD and sends out a sig that it has been installed on a new computer ....good old MS