BSoD after testing HDD

[jpsenior]

Hey everyone!

so I'm planning on putting a new rig together for a friend; he has a computer now that doesn't work and he wanted to know if he could salvage his hard drive, psu, etc and just upgrade the current computer.

So i took his desktop and brought it to my place to test out parts in my computer(i built it 4 years ago, it is still in perfect working order). I installed the Hard drive, and it took forever to boot up, and then at the loading screen i got Bsod. I can't upload the pic cause i'm on break at work now, but i'll write the error code down.

STOP: 0x0000007B (0xFFFFFA60005AF9C0, 0xFFFFFFFFC0000034, 0x00000000000... 0x000000000000)

As i understand it, this implies that the hdd is inaccessible?

Does this just need to be reformatted, or is this a sign that the hard drive has failed/is failing?

Thanks!

 

[RealBeast]

You didn't attach it as your boot drive, right? The drivers would be all different so I would expect a BSOD. If that was not your intent, check you bios to insure that you boot from your boot drive, as adding a drive can change the boot device sometimes.

If it BSODs when you boot from your drive, then it indicates his HDD is probably dead.

And be careful to have all your data backed up in case you hose your machine in the testing process.

 

[pdxalex]

I'm assuming you were tying to boot his OS, which probably contains a Windows installation incompatible with your hardware. Try hooking his up but booting from your's.

 

[jpsenior]

Yeah i removed my hdd completely and just plugged his in and went into the bios and made it the boot device. But i don't understand. both of our hdd's have vista on them. Either way, should i plug both in, boot from mine, and just see what happens anyways?

 

[Hawkeye22]

You can't boot from another system's OS drive as you found out. It doesn't matter that you both have vista. You have different hardware - motherboard, video, cards, etc,... which is not compatible due to the wrong drivers being installed. Put your drive back in and make it the boot drive. Connect his drive to one of the other free sata ports and it should show up as a secondary drive with a new drive letter.

 

[jpsenior]

understood. new question then.

When i but new parts for the computer but i'm also using some old parts (cpu, cd/dvd drive, psu) will this have the same effect? will there be some sort of conflict because there are drivers installed on the hdd that i'm using? Or, is it just good a better idea reformat it and always go in with a clean drive?

 

[RealBeast]

Just attach it as a second drive on your machine to test it. If it is okay then you can add different parts and update the drivers. You can generally add new cpu, psu, memory, cd/dvd without an issue. With the graphic card it is usually best to delete the old drivers, add the card, then load the new drivers.

A clean install occasionally for XP seems to be a good idea to get rid of all the junk many folks accumulate, but backup all his data first and insure that he still has his install disks for programs.

 

[Hawkeye22]

understood. new question then.

When i but new parts for the computer but i'm also using some old parts (cpu, cd/dvd drive, psu) will this have the same effect? will there be some sort of conflict because there are drivers installed on the hdd that i'm using? Or, is it just good a better idea reformat it and always go in with a clean drive?

When moving to a new system (especially a new motherboard) a clean install of the OS is always recommended. With windows, it's also recommended to only have the drive you want the OS on installed/connected to in the computer. Only attach the remaining drives after the OS is installed. This prevents the boot loader and OS from ending up on different drives and saves hassles down the road.