Two HP Towers - C: drive swap

I have an HP a6030n and I have been having a drive problem (2Tb E:documents).
I purchased another to clone it before it died completely, had errors adding.
Purchased a second, same issues, so I am thinking it has something to do
with the I/O - Motherboard. I have a second HP dx2450 that won't start due to
a missing / Corrupted dll file. I have no recovery disks for the second machine
so I can not "use".


Question...............


Can I pull the C: drive from the working tower along with my E: drive to confirm
my suspicions or will it not start due to the wrong Vista version. I can not use the
HP a6030n recovery disks in the HP dx2450, that is why I ask?






Bill

More than likely you have OEM copies of Vista and such copies are tied to the machine that Windows is activated on. Hence you can't transfer from one computer to another.

townsbg said:

More than likely you have OEM copies of Vista and such copies are tied to the machine that Windows is activated on. Hence you can't transfer from one computer to another.

Click to expand...

I did try my other Vista recovery disks and you are correct, but will it fire up with the whole drive switched?
What / How does it know if the disks are not the OEM ones that came with the machine, BIOS?


Bill

If you put the hard drive in another computer windows will want to reactivate and if it is an OEM license it will not be able to activate since it knows that it is in another computer. Only a retail license can be transferred to another computer. That's somewhere in the fine print.

OK I ordered the correct restore disks
Now have both up and running

When I plug the E: drive in the other system it won't start, unplug it and it starts?

Added a new 2TB to the old system and used Seagate disk wizard's add disk app
but the new drive does not show up in my drives list?

I would like to be able to have both 2TB drives working in one system so I can transfer data from the old one to the new but I am having no luck, What am I missing?



Bill

Perhaps you have a weak PSU or possibly only one working port. Could also be the data cable or power cable. Are these SATA drives? SATA drives usually have 2 power plugs. Only use one. I'm not sure what using both would do but I wouldn't want to find out.

How do I assign a drive letter to the new drive

The found new H/W pops up saying ready to use
Ran the Add drive app from Seagate
tried F10 to get into setup

I can see no way to assign a drive letter?

so where would that go, in the Run dialog box?

control panel > advanced tools > disk management