Question Found an old HDD from my family's mid 2000s computer. Issues booting up XP to look at what's saved

[tsteve1998]

Hello there. Like the title mentioned, last night I was digging through my family's home and came across an old hard drive we used back on an old PC that ran Windows XP. Since then, I've played the hard drive in my computer alongside my typical HDD running windows 10. I've had no issues accessing the drive itself it would seem after booting to Windows 10, but when trying to side boot to Windows XP, I am greeted by the black boot-choice screen. Safe mode (base, w/ networking, w/ command prompt) all fail when selected, resulting in an error of "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1) windows system32 ntoskrnl.exe", while the last successful boot settings choice results in "load needed dlls for kernel". This also occurs when the XP drive is the only storage device connected to the motherboard at the time.

I imagine there are registry errors or missing files, and as such would like to reinstall windows XP on the drive if at all possible, but does that make sense, and how would I go about doing so while keeping my files from being deleted? I would appreciate any and all insight you all could offer. Thank you very much

 

[King_V]

The install of Windows XP has all the drivers and everything that would give it the expectations of the hardware that the computer it came from would have.

Regardless of which version of Windows, moving a hard drive with an OS install from one PC to the next will absolutely NOT work correctly. Windows may attempt to try and compensate for it, but generally can't do so effectively.

 

[tsteve1998]

The install of Windows XP has all the drivers and everything that would give it the expectations of the hardware that the computer it came from would have.

Regardless of which version of Windows, moving a hard drive with an OS install from one PC to the next will absolutely NOT work correctly. Windows may attempt to try and compensate for it, but generally can't do so effectively.

So I'm guessing this isn't salvageable then? There's nothing I can try?

 

[rgd1101]

So I'm guessing this isn't salvageable then? There's nothing I can try?

I've had no issues accessing the drive itself it would seem after booting to Windows 10,

 

[fzabkar]

You should start by backing up the files that you want to keep. Then confirm whether your new hardware has all the necessary drivers for Windows XP.

If you don't have a Win XP setup CD, then check whether your XP installation has a Recovery partition.

 

[popatim]

What are you trying to salvage?
Xp isn't secure at all and you should already have access to anything on the drive.
There really isn't a need to get XP to boot unless you're trying to run old programs like games. For that to happen, as already mentioned, you would need XP drivers for your current System which isn't likely if it's newer.

 

[Ketchup79]

Most likely you want to ADD to your computer, making sure that the computer boots from the Windows 10 drive. One 10 fully recognized the drive, you will be able to access any data you need on that XP drive.

 

[Joshua_99]

You probably wont be able to boot Xp on that hardware. Try getting an older computer to boot off of.

 

[King_V]

So I'm guessing this isn't salvageable then? There's nothing I can try?

Not to run it directly, no. You can make it a secondary drive, boot up your Windows 10 at normal, and grab files off of the old XP drive. That's about it.

Then reformat it and use it as a drive - assuming its capacity makes it worth even doing that.