How do I boot from an old hard drive in an entirely new computer?

[Doomish]

Hello. My grandpa went out and bought a pre-built HP Pavilion desktop computer, and wants to take the hard drive out of his old PC and use it in the new one. He brought me over to help him with this but immediately I ran into a couple problems:

1. The old hard drive won't successfully boot, and having built my own new PC in the past I know why this is. The old hard drive is trying to boot with the hardware from the old PC, which obviously it doesn't have access to anymore. I've put in his install CD (the one for the OS on the old hard drive) but here I ran into the second problem.

2. The mouse and keyboard don't work on the Startup Repair or Win 7 CD splash screens.

Tackling this is proving very frustrating and I think my hair is going to start turning grey soon so I'd really appreciate it if someone could just give me a straightforward solution to booting to his old install and making sure it's set up for the new PC. I know that it's possible because I've done it on my own computer, so having someone explain it step by step itt would be a life saver. Alternatively, if it would be easier, booting to the NEW Windows install in the new PC's hard drive and replacing it with his old Windows install.

 

[kanewolf]

It is unlikely you will get the old drive to boot. You need to tell him that he can keep the data on the old drive, but the applications will have to be reinstalled.

 

[Doomish]

That's unfortunate. My contingency in case it didn't end up being possible was as follows: Do a fresh Windows install on the new hard drive with his install CD and wipe the one that is currently on there (bloatware trash and all), and then move his personal files over from the old drive to the new one. The wrinkle of course is that he has a lot of banking programs and so on that store personal data that may be unrecoverable or in a weird spot like the Appdata folders- I have no idea -which is why he wants to keep using this hard drive.

Of course, none of this solves the problem of the mouse/keyboard not being usable after leaving the BIOS and going to the Install CD splash menu. Without that being resolved, I can't do even the first step.

 

[Alabalcho]

Your best bet is to return that drive back to the HP, and pray to computer Gods that it will boot. Explain to your grandpa that he can't just move a harddrive between computers.

When the old PC boots, study how you can transwer that hard drive image into a virtual machine for his new PC. ANd last but not least - he'll need valid Windows license for his new PC. Even if that old hard drive boots (which it doesn't), you wont be able to reactivate Windows 7 HP OEM onto another PC.