sorry for all lower case but i fractured my arm;
my son has x1 installed on his pc but needs more horsepower. my wife agreed to switch pcs with him (hers is more poweful)

i figured we could just switch out c drives and tell bios to boot from the new one but it gives windows error, wants to repair and then cant.
am i misunderstanding how to go about this

Yes mate, that solution is never going to work because, at least as far as my limited understaning applies, the hardware confiugration which that particular hard drive is expecting to see (which was written during Windows install) is now totally different.

Best solution - buy a new hard drive, put in your sons machines and install a fresh copy of Windows on it.

Without a LOT of additional info about your sons machine it's difficult to formulate a complete plan.

Desktop/laptop
Hard drive configuration
OS
RAM etc

Bristol_Jonesey


Yes mate, that solution is never going to work because, at least as far as my limited understaning applies, the hardware confiugration which that particular hard drive is expecting to see (which was written during Windows install) is now totally different.

Best solution - buy a new hard drive, put in your sons machines and install a fresh copy of Windows on it.

Without a LOT of additional info about your sons machine it's difficult to formulate a complete plan.

Desktop/laptop
Hard drive configuration
OS
RAM etc

damn computers...oh well thanks jonesy

Bristol is right. When you install Windows it is installed to that machine and only that machine. Sure you can always intall it to another machine but the key word is install not swap.

dang I thought for sure this could somehow work by using the 'repair cd' or something...thanks anyway guys

You can accomplish this task if you are able to find all of the drivers for the MainBoard of the computer that you switched it too. What everyone is trying to tell you is that Windows has a way of communicating with each component connected to the computer. (ie. SoundCard, MotherBoard, VideoCard) These are called drivers in windows terms. If you have all of the CD's that came with the computer, lots of times the drivers for the computer are on the CD's. You can also try going to the computer maker's website. They sometimes post all of the drivers there. This would be the same thing you would have to do, if you installed a fresh copy of the operating system on the computer.

so are you saying that if the other c drive had all of the drivers installed on it, it would be able to configure itself to the new hardware it's seeing ?

No the drivers on the harddrive are for the other computer. You will need to manually install the drivers for the new computer.

This probably will be a time consuming thing, and not an easy fix

sdiggs


No the drivers on the harddrive are for the other computer. You will need to manually install the drivers for the new computer.

hey you look different now...anyway, that's what i was trying to ask...if i manually install the graphics, sound card etc drivers will it be able to run the new hardware?