I have friends visiting me, and they brought their computer which has windows ME on it. They also brought along a computer that was given to them which is a HP mini computer. The problem is that the HP computer requires a special power cord that puts out 9v and has 8 pins on it that plugs into the back of the HP computer. Unfortunately, they left the power cord home ( in another state ). I have taken the hard drive out of the HP computer and made it a slave in the ME machine. I have copied a lot of files and stuff over to the HP hard drive. This morning i got to thinking if maybe i could boot up with the HP hard drive ( the one that has XP pro on it ). I know that the XP pro is going to see a new motherboard and stuff, but will it boot up, and let me install programs on it, before i put it back into the HP machine? They are leaving in 2 days, and i have called local computer stores for the special power cord, but of course they are not to be had. So again........ will the HP hard drive boot up and work in the other machine?

if you boot from cdrom and chose repair installation you should be fine. however, this step must be repeated then if the drive goes back into the hp mini computer. Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

mattie... My appologies. I should have stated that they did not bring their ME disk, nor the new XP disk along with them. I do have an XP pro disk for one of my machines here. Can i use my XP pro disk, and their keys ( which are on their HP computer ), to do the repair? Also, just what exactly is going to happen when i do the repair? Is the repair going to recognize the new motherboard and components? If that is the case, then i guess it would work, cause i could put the HP hard drive back into the HP machine, and then they could run the repair when they get back home. Am i interpreting this correctly? Also, what would happen if i just try to boot up with the HP hard drive in the ME machine? Will it boot up at all?

It might boot up, i have had it work both ways. Some times xp will get stuck in a boot loop. Then again it might work, flip a coin.

HP's install of XP is tied to that PC, if you install in another PC it will not validate !!!

Santa's right. I don't think some thought thru the jist of the orginal post. JohnFL if you really want to screw up the HP go ahead and run a repair reinstall. Odds are these folks, when they get home, will have to get someone else to run the HP Recovery disk [if they can even find it] to get things back to working. That of course will wipe the disk and put it back to factory defaults. Kinda wasted your time then right? Surely you have a cd or dvd burner? Why are you going thru all these hoops when you could have just left things as they are and burned your files/installs to a cd they could then pop and an run? Imagine the power if you knew how to internet search

If you were able to copy files while operating under WinME then the HDrive is formatted FAT32. What can you accomplish by booting to that HDrive that you can't do accessing it as a slave?