XP won't boot up

[andersonj21]

Ok, this is kind of complicated. I have a dell computer running XP that multiple people use (at work). It runs a few commercial software programs that we need. One day the monitor stopped working (the monitor was actually fine it just wasn't getting a signal from the video card). Anyways, after 3 unsuccessful Dell technician visits (we had the warranty), Dell shipped us a new computer. It had Vista on it. I swapped out the hard drive with our old hard drive (with XP) but I got an error when it tried to launch windows. It said that there was something wrong with the hard drive, that if I had just installed new hardware and this was the first time the error message came up, to restart the computer. I restarted, but the same message keeps coming up. If I boot up with the Vista HD and connect the XP HD as a secondary drive, I can get to all my important files, but vista won't run our commercial software.

Any suggestions on what I can do?

 

[badge]

I swapped out the hard drive with our old hard drive (with XP) but I got an error when it tried to launch windows. It said that there was something wrong with the hard drive, that if I had just installed new hardware and this was the first time the error message came up, to restart the computer. I restarted, but the same message keeps coming up.

When you pulled the HD from the old computer that HD had all the drivers for the MB it was supporting in that computer specifically. Of course, if you just try to simply plug that old HD with the old system drivers in and have th new system with new and 'entirely' different MB, the system will not boot up. If you insist you are going to plug the old HD with Windows XP into that new system/MB, you will have to have an XP install disk and do a 'repair' install, then load up the proper drivers for the new MB. If you already have the new Vista machine running and have transferred the important files to the new machine, you are all set. I'm sure DELL provides no Windows XP drivers as far as system utilities and so on for their new Vista machine. You and your Bud's are having a hard time using Vista 32? Try this on your new machine:

Right click on the desktop bottom-most tool bar (the main toolbar on the desktop)
Select 'properties'
Select 'Start menu'
Select 'Classic Start menu'

Now your desktop should look familiar.

have you turned off UAC (User Account Control)? It's in Contol Panel under User Accounts. Turn it off.