OS Won't Boot After Install in Other PC

Razor7Tech

Active Member
Hello--

I've got a tough one here. My son got a nasty virus on his computer and I ended up deciding after the OS would no longer boot to just reformat and start all over again with a fresh install of Windows XP.

Since he lives in another state, he mailed me his hard drive out of an eMachine T5212. It's an IDE HD and so I had to connect it to an old PC we had lying around. I backed up his files and wiped the drive and did a fresh install of W XP and put the drivers for his model of PC in a folder for him to install once he put the HD back in. I know it was a long shot, but I couldn't think of anything else I could do--and save his data.

Well, that didn't go well. He put the HD back in the eMachine and powered in up and got the following blue screen error:

Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated. Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF793D524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)"

I did some searching online and it is either the drivers for the HD conrtoller or the boot record. If you're familiar with this machine, they have a recovery partition that I left intact when I wiped the drive. When installing Windows, the recovery partition chose C and the OS ended up on D. In the startup and recovery section of Windows, I deselected the post BIOS pop-up for choosing the recovery or the OS to boot so it would boot straight into Windows. It worked great on the machine I used locally.

Now, I'm trying to decide if there is any point in having him ship the HD back to me or if I should just have him ship the whole computer, HD and all back to me? The challenge is he is out of warranty with eMachines and I've had to do all of this based on what I've read on their website. They did not make any other drivers available other than video, NIC, audio and chip set.

If it's the boot portion, then maybe a boot guru here can assist.

Any help is greatly appreciated!
 
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With Windows it'll panic if you try running on a machine where it hasnt been installed (unless the machines are nearly alike) either due to drivers or piracy protection.

The best thing you can do is either fix it for him in person at his place or recommend he sees someone in his area.
 
Since you're lucky enough that it's Windows XP and not Windows Vista or 7 that we're talking about - try to repair install it.

How to perform an in-place upgrade of Windows XP

Good thought, thanks. He has tons of AVIs (101 GBs) so if I don't have to move those around again, that would be great.

We found out the cost to ship his whole system is not that much money at all, so that's what we're going to do. FYI--I did initially do a search online regarding using the OS drive from one PC in another, and the answers ranged from nope, to yup, to just install the new drivers.

Being that the hardware was as dissimilar between computers is probably my issue. It would not even boot in safe mode.

Lesson learned.

Thanks all!
 
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