[SOLVED] Windows 7 crashes on startup after moving HDD to another PC

[Halfon3100]

Greetings!
I got a (used)new PC. I did not want to do fresh install of windows so I transferred my HDD from the old PC to the new one and configured the BIOS to start from this HDD, but when I turn on the PC I see the win7 for a second and then the computer crashes(blue screen for a bare half a second) and immediately restarts.
I tried windows 7 system repair but it says "it couldn't fix the PC".
I currently can not switch back the HDD to the old PC to see if it works and the HDD is fine. Is there anything I can do about it? It's really important to me - both the new PC and the contents of the HDD.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Darkbreeze]

The problem isn't the hard drive. The problem is that Windows was setup and configured for COMPLETELY DIFFERENT hardware, including different storage controllers, different chipset, etc., and the new hardware isn't compatible with the drivers and configuration of the existing installation.

Unless you've attached that Windows 7 license to a Microsoft account or you know the product installation key for that Windows 7 license, you are probably out of luck and will likely need to purchase a new copy of Windows to get this to work right by reinstalling. A CLEAN install. Sometimes you can get away with not doing a clean install when you change platforms, but usually you can't. Seems you are in the "can't" column.

 

[Halfon3100]

The problem isn't the hard drive. The problem is that Windows was setup and configured for COMPLETELY DIFFERENT hardware, including different storage controllers, different chipset, etc., and the new hardware isn't compatible with the drivers and configuration of the existing installation.

Unless you've attached that Windows 7 license to a Microsoft account or you know the product installation key for that Windows 7 license, you are probably out of luck and will likely need to purchase a new copy of Windows to get this to work right by reinstalling. A CLEAN install. Sometimes you can get away with not doing a clean install when you change platforms, but usually you can't. Seems you are in the "can't" column.

Thanks a lot for the quick response! I really appreciate it
Is there any way to install drivers for this new hardware "off windows"? For example with a CD disc with a dedicated software, or even in "window enviroment" like system restore(oddly, system restore does work. Didn't manage to fix the problem, but did work rather than crash)?
I don't have access to the PC at the moment, but once I'll have I will check whether safe mode does work. I will also try to capture with a camera the exact blue screen error code, though I'm not sure it is even written(as far as I remember the blue screen was literally only blue screen with no text, it was restarting too fast)

 

[Darkbreeze]

Not really. The problem isn't the lack of the drivers, because Windows can usually install generic or universal ones for most hardware until specific ones can be installed. The problem is, it's not going to get to that point because the information in the registry is where the trouble is and you really can't fix that without either getting it to boot into Windows, which SOMETIMES will allow you to fix the problem but usually there are still bits and pieces of "problems" that linger and people usually end up doing a clean install anyhow, or doing a clean install to begin with.

The error code really doesn't matter. It's not going to lead to a solution.

Was the old PC a prebuilt system or a custom built one? If it was a prebuilt then there should be a Windows license sticker on the case somewhere that has the product key on it. Get a picture of that because with that you can likely install and activate Windows 10 on this system without any problem. You're going to have trouble with Windows 7, even if you get it to work, because it's dead and no longer supported by Microsoft. I'm not even sure you can get a valid ISO download of Windows 7 anymore so if you don't have installation media you might be in trouble there and to be honest you are worlds better using Windows 10 anyhow. Worst case scenario you can always install Windows 10 and simply deal with an occasional reminder that you need to activate and a watermark on the desktop until you can either source a legitimate Windows 7 or 8 license to use for activating it, or obtain a valid Windows 10 product key in order to activate.

Unfortunately, all of these options pretty much entail having to reinstall all your programs and potentially lose any data that was on that drive if you don't have it backed up elsewhere unless you can get it to boot in the old machine and back that data up to a flash drive or somewhere else before installing Windows on the new machine, however you decide to do that.