OK, I've seen many topics on this forum about peoples XP not booting but none of them are the same problem as mine. OK well her it goes. I did a clean install of Windows XP Pro on another computer took the hard drive out and hooked it to another computer. And now I turn the computer on and it gets past the first boot screen (doesn't show XP screen) and then it goes straight to a black screen with just a cursor and flashes and it won't let me do anything. I've messed around in BIOS and I cannot find anything and I have set BIOS to setup defaults and it still will not work. But this hard drive will boot up find on the other computer that I installed it on. and also I have taken apart the computer and put it back together to make sure everything was hooked up and it is? Does anyone have any ideas?

Installing WIN XP on one computer and taking the disk out and expecting it to run on another computer if fraught with problems. It sometimes works but it all depends on the different hardware. If the hardware in each computer is widly defferent then there will be problems. Win XP is very fussy about the hardware it runs on and that doesn't just include motherboard and CPU, it includes everything that is plugged into the PCI/AGP slots. All to do with the activiation requirements of XP, which may I suggest, you appear to be trying to circumvent. The only way to make the installation work on the second computer is to do a repair install which will in effect make it a new installation which will require activation. Stuart

You'll have to find a way to do an install on the machine that your now running XP on. It is very hardware specific. I imagine its your drivers. see if you can do an F8 and confirm to see what drivers are screwing up. Maybe you can use the console to fix the driver problem if you have no other way.

Hey Try to boot from the CD and go to the repair option. Type in Fixboot and then Fixmbr. That should get you going.

It windows xp activation feature. Windows 98 would work in this way, but xp will not. The repair may work I do not know, I have my doubts though. Just buy a copy of xp, cause thats about all you can do legally.