XP Netbook Boot Problems

[livin4noone]

Here's my problem.

I have a netbook, I recently took out the hard drive and installed it into my main desktop (it uses regular sata ports), so that I could format it and reinstall Windows XP in favor of vista. The install went fine, it booted fine (when installed in my desktop). I removed the drive and placed it back into the netbook, but now XP refuses to boot. I get a STOP 0x0000007B blue screen. I believe the problem is that the XP installation doesn't have the right drivers installed to boot from the netbook, but I have no idea how to go about installing the correct drivers since the netbook doesn't have a CD drive (hence why I had to install on a different computer).

My limitations :
I have no access to BIOS (it has a password, which I do not know, I have tried all the passwords I can think of).

My options:
I have a desktop I can use to install any files required.

Please help.
This is very important.

 

[nacho2k3]

The XP installation process installs drivers based on the system currently present. You cannot take a hard disk drive with XP out of one machine and plug it into another to boot and expect it to succeed with a degree of certainty.

You would need to install XP with the drive IN the netbook. You would need a External USB DVD Drive or a bootable USB Stick that runs XP Installation first thing off the bat (via BartPE or other method). Also, for dual-boot, XP would need to go on first, then Vista in that order. Vista's bootloader is backwards compatible with XP, but Vista will not allow Windows XP to install while it's running.

You do not need access to the BIOS in most cases, but you DO need access to the boot order menu, which CAN be disabled in BIOS. If it is, there's not much to be done about it and the laptop may very well be bricked unless you can reset the CMOS by taking it apart.

 

[livin4noone]

I already solved this problem.

But I'd like to clear some things up.

1. It IS possible to install Windows on a hard drive without it being in the netbook. The installation copies the files to the hard drive that it needs to install Windows before it actually installs it. It does not install any drivers or configure anything at first, it just copies over the installation files. So it's perfectly reasonable to allow it to do that, and then replace the hard drive and let the installation continue.

2. The issue was caused by a missing SATA controller driver, which can only be installed while the controller is set to native mode, but the problem is that you cannot use native mode without the driver (bluescreen). The solution was to install vista business first (vista and 7 include the necessary driver), and then downgrade to XP. Problem solved.

3. I'm a little disappointed in the fact that it took almost two months to get a reply. Good thing I didn't wait up.

 

[Zoron]

Problem is that in a busy section such as this, posts can and do get bumped to the bottom of the page or even the next page very quickly. I know that for me personally, I did not notice this post until now. Of course, I spend most of my time in the Vista / 7 sections and I don't read the XP section as thoroughly as I used to. There are advantages to a busy site, but there are also disadvantages... one being that posts can and do get lost and sometimes don't get a timely reply.