Windows vista error

[pockywocky]

Hello I have recently just finished building my pc with my reused hard drive which has vista on it. Everytime I try to turn on my computer it gives me an error that says windows has failed to start, a recent change in hardware or software may be the cause. It then tells me to put my installation disk in restart my computer and repair. But it still givesme the same error even though i have put the disk in. How do I fix this?

 

[Soda-88]

If your new build uses different hardware, your old drivers are causing conflicts which results in said errors. Try going into safe mode (by pressing F8 key before Windows loading screen) and while there, go to C:\Windows\System32\sysprep, open sysprep.exe, select OOBE and Reboot, check 'generalize' and confirm with OK. This will rid your system of old drivers that are preventing OS from working properly.
After the PC restarts you'll be on OOBE screen as if you just reinstalled Windows. Just make a bogus account when asked, then after everything is done logout, switch to your old user account and in control panel > Users applet delete the new account that you just made.

 

[pauls3743]

You're using an installation of Vista that was installed using different hardware from what you're using now? It's possibly to do this in certain circumstances but relies on having the same hard drive controller setup and a retail copy of the OS so it can be reactivated. It sounds to me like you don't have the same hard drive controller setup between machines.

Unless someone else comes along with a better/correct suggestion I'd be looking at reinstalling your Vista.

 

[pockywocky]

Hi, the error pops up before I could even reach the Windows loading screen, so pressing F8 doesn't work.

If I could, I would love to re-install vista again, but I always ends up back in that screen. I can't run in safe mode, or repair with my Vista CD. Would getting a new Harddrive and Operating system fix this?