I just swapped hard drives, now what?

Question

I took out one hard drive, and put another one in, both were functioning hard drives. Now that I switched windows isn't booting normally. "this may be result of a recent hardware change". How do I fix this?

Answer 1

You need to boot your computer from your operating system cd. So turn on your computer insert the cd. Eventually there will be a screen that says boot from cd or got to something else. Click boot from cd and install windows. After that your done.

Good luck.

Answer 2

I am guessing that you are talking about the SECOND hard drive.... since swapping the first one with Windows on it would be obvious error and would yield a "NTLDR.SYS Not Found" error.

So, with that assumption, I think you have the JUMPERS set wrong. probably the NEW drive that you installed is set to MASTER. That conflicts the the existing Drive 0 also set as Master.

Check it. drive 0 (orig) to be MASTER, drive 1 (new) should be SLAVE.

Answer 3

You failed to mention your operating system. I assume it is XP, and the reason for the problem is that XP 'locks' to your hardware configuration when you install it. If you change too many components, it will 'unregister' and you will need to get an unlock code from Microsoft. Since you swapped disks, XP thinks you have tried to install to a new computer, therefore needs to be reactivated.
Bottom line: call microsoft, get unlock code, work away.

Answer 4

Your windows is probably on your first hard drive so better re-install windows on your 2nd hard drive.

You can use both the hard drive and you wont have any problems. Just indicate that you want your old hard drive as your boot drive.

Answer 5

Your windows operating system exists on your first hard drive. If you switch, you need to install windows on this pc.

Answer 6

Repair the boot sector