Use desktop to install xp on laptop hard drive?

jadi929

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Jun 7, 2009
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The problem is that when i put the hard drive in my laptop, windows xp setup doesn't recognize it (I know it needs the SATA support drivers) and i don't want to slipstream the drivers and burn another disc

So I put that same hard drive (from my laptop) in my desktop and xp setup did recognize it. But I wanted to be sure before I went ahead and started the installation.

So is it ok that I use my desktop to install xp on my laptop hard drive and put it back into my laptop? Keep in mind i'm trying to install windows xp tablet edition which is different from other xp installations.
 

jadi929

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Jun 7, 2009
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Ok, but already tried this and went back and installed the hd back into the laptop, I kept getting the blue screen, but that might have been cuz I dropped the hard drive on the floor

Anyway, I'll try this once again tomorrow, and yes ofcourse I'll have to get all the drivers installed
 


The floor eh??

You may need to install hard drive interface drivers to make the drive work in your laptop.
If your desktop machine you are using to install XP has a floppy drive and you have the HDD drivers for the laptop handy, press the F6 key during install and load those drivers. Setup will not crash just because the hardware didn't exist for those drivers, but this will get them installed and increase your chances of XP starting in the laptop when the drive is re-installed in the laptop.

I see two problems coming:

#1: The "HAL" (hardware Abstraction layer) might sink you. Your Windows install is not "home" in the laptop.
#2: The device drivers you are about to install will not be valid for the laptop, and XP may crash.

Do Not install any drivers for any hardware in the desktop. The laptop is not going to have that same hardware.

Here is a link to a very well written procedure to increase the probability of your XP install working in a different machine than the one it was installed in.
The article is Not written for your specific situation, but I expect you will experience all the troubles this article will help solve.


http://tech.icrontic.com/articles/repair_windows_xp/
 

jadi929

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Jun 7, 2009
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Ok thanks for the informative link. I just got another idea, you see iv already burned an xp pro cd with the required sata drivers. But when i use this cd, it nevee asks me for the tablet pc files. Yet it somehow installs xp tablet edition, but the tablet functions dont work, obviously because the files arent there

right now xp tablet is installed on the drive, but as stated, the installation is missing the tablet files. So perhaps if i use my desktop to just repair the current installation, then maybe it'll install xp tablet WITH the sata support drivers

i feel smart
 

jadi929

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Jun 7, 2009
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nevermind, I got it. I realized since I was slip streaming drivers (using Nlite) that I had to copy the componenets folder from xp tablet cd 2 and paste it right in with cd1 (xp pro)

so I ended up installing it through my laptop and all the features are working

also, installing xp using my desktop only seemed to result in the blue screen, so i won't be trying that in the future