I recently built a new pc, however I am using my hard drive from my old computer. My new motherboard is sata interface but my hard drive is pata ide interface. I bought a pci ide controller card so I can hook my hard drive up to this and be able to use it, however I am running into problems. When I start the computer up it seems to recognize the hard drive, but it won't boot up. It goes through the system specs screen then a screen with the name of my hard drive and a blinking underscore. After this screen it is a screen asking to start windows normally, in safe mode, etc. After this screen it repeats the whole process. I put the hard drive first in the boot sequence already, so I don't know what the problem is. Any help on this matter would be great, thanks!

Your saying that you can't or can get into safe mode? Xp on an Hdd from an older computer? Xp is made for one computer system.

Well when I select start windows in safe mode it starts the whole process over and never gets past that screen. I am using a hard drive from an old computer with windows xp and a lot of other things on it, I cannot use this on my new computer? Can I boot up with the XP cd in and just reformat? Is there a way to boot up without having to reformat? Thanks.

The following is assuming that you do not have an OEM system, like Dell, Compaq, Emachine, etc.

You should be able to boot from your Microsoft XP install CD and do a 'Repair' install. That 'hopefully' will get the system going. However, the drastic change in hardware will probably make it necessary to 're-Activate' and you will probably run into problems doing that.

Also, if you later decide to put the drive back in the old system, you will have to go through the whole process again.

"My new motherboard is sata interface but my hard drive is pata ide interface. I bought a pci ide controller card"

You mean to say your new board has no IDE channels whatsoever? or it only has one & you're using it for optical drives?

"I am using a hard drive from an old computer .... I cannot use this on my new computer?"

No, not in it's current state.

"Can I boot up with the XP cd in and just reformat?"

You could, but you will lose everything.

"Is there a way to boot up without having to reformat"

Yes, it's called a "repair install":

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/...

My motherboard has one ide channel, and it is being used by an optical drive. I just tried the repair install and it said it couldn't find a hard drive, but it shows up in my bios and when I start the computer up, so any help on this? thanks.

If you have only ONE optical drive you can also connect the IDE harddrive to that same controller.

"I just tried the repair install and it said it couldn't find a hard drive, but it shows up in my bios"

1st of all, did you try connecting it to the same cable as the optical drive as suggested by OtheHill? That would be the way to go. You'd still have to do the repair installation though...there's no way around that.

Otherwise, I *think* (not 100% sure) you need to install the driver for the controller card & that HAS to be done while the HDD is still connected to the old system/motherboard...then you can do the swap. Did you read the manual?

You usually need to set the boot order to boot to SCSI when using a controller card. Don't use the card unless you have to.

Drivers won't do any good in the BIOS.

When attempting the repair install you will get a choice to use the repair console first. Skip that option and when given the choice you choose to install WinXP.

After Windows loads a bunch of files you will be given the choice of where and how to install WinXP. Choose the folder that Windows is currently installed to.

The old installation will be overwritten but your files in My Cocuments will be saved.

I tried everyones advice and still no luck. When I hooked the hard drive up to the ide connector on the mother board I also hooked up the cd rom drive with the same cable, however when I booted the pc and tried to repair windows xp with the cd it still wouldn't detect the hard drive. Anymore help would be great!

You must have the jumpers on the two drives set wrong. Try setting the harddrive as Master and the CD drive as slave.

Sorry if this is off-topic, but may I know how can I identify the maximum HDD capacity allowed by my BIOS/chipset/etc.? Is there any (free) software to help me on this?

Thanks.

Sal♥

None that I know of. Some chipsets are know to not support 48 bit LBA. As a rule of thumb, any cumpter with a 64bit processor shuld be 48 bit LBA compatible. Any computer that shipped with a HDrive larger than 127GB is either natively compatible or has a controller card installed. Any computer older than 3 years is most likely not. The stuff inetween is is iffy. If you have a specific computer or MBoard in mind post the model for additional help.