I have an old Dell computer of mine that the motherboard went out on. My grandfather has a old gateway of his that the harddrive went bad on. He forgot to keep his xp serial # so he just bought a new computer. I was wondering if I could take my hard drive from my dell (That already has xp on it and everything) and get it to work in the gateway. I tried but it woudn't boot up. The settings on the hard drive is set to single drive and is installed correctly. It will not let me go into any safe mode either. I was figuring I could go into safe mode and just get all the drivers for the computer. Is this even possible to do? I also do not have a hard copy of xp. I searched all over the net couldn't find anyone saying you could/couldn't do this so thanks for any help I really appreciate it!
2007-02-18 09:27:09 · 5 answers · asked by brandon r 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Other - Hardware
have an old Dell computer of mine that the motherboard went out on. My grandfather has a old gateway of his that the harddrive went bad on. He forgot to keep his xp serial # so he just bought a new computer. I was wondering if I could take my hard drive from my dell (That already has xp on it and everything) and get it to work in the gateway. I tried but it woudn't boot up. The settings on the hard drive is set to single drive and is installed correctly. It will not let me go into any safe mode either. I was figuring I could go into safe mode and just get all the drivers for the computer. Is this even possible to do? I also do not have a hard copy of xp. I searched all over the net couldn't find anyone saying you could/couldn't do this so thanks for any help I really appreciate it!
Edit: I do not have access to a copy of xp as it never came with one. How would I install a new OS on the drive and get rid of the old? Such as maybe linux? Is linux available as a download off of net?
2007-02-18 09:47:26 · update #1
If your hard disk is giving error messages it is cheaper to install a new hard disk drive and transfer all important data to the new hard drive. Depending on your technical skills, importance of the data, time and money available, there are various options available. More details at http://fixit.in/transferdata.html
2007-02-18 12:10:53 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
As the drive already has xp installed and spec'd for the other machine you cannot just do a swap into a new machine. The drive should physically work but you will need to reinstall xp.
2007-02-18 09:32:44 · answer #2 · answered by Kevin Doyle 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
yes you can do it.
But you need to reinstall the windows XP using CD recovery of gateway computer.
You may be able to use the windows which is installed in dell harddisk. but it will need to be reconfigured. Just ask suitable person.
2007-02-18 09:34:51 · answer #3 · answered by L-BA 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
yes but you d need to reinstall windows if its xp
2007-02-18 09:30:27 · answer #4 · answered by koalatcomics 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I would go ask a professional to do it for you....
2007-02-18 09:29:37 · answer #5 · answered by I Want the Answer 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋