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Windows XP Problem solving for the Windows XP Operating System

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  #1  
Old November 18th, 2020, 12:50 AM
justacruzr2 justacruzr2 is offline
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Cool File transfer help requested

I'm setting up another computer, an HP Media Center circa 2005, with XP Pro Retail version. In order to save myself weeks of installing apps and doing personal settings for everything I wanted to transfer the folders \Program Files, \Documents and Settings and \Windows to the hard drive on the HP. Using my regular computer, an eMachines, I copied those folders to a spare HDD I have which is a PATA. The HP has a SATA HDD but the 2 CD/DVD drives are PATA. So I removed 1 of the CD/DVD drives and hooked up the PATA HDD from the eMachines in its place. I then started up the HP and went into setup to change the boot order to boot to the HDD that I transferred over from the eMachines. When I rebooted I got a blue screen message that went by so fast I couldn't read it but I'm assuming that Windows didn't like the fact that it was from a different computer even though this is the RETAIL version of XP which doesn't do the machine checking that the OEM version of Windows does. I think that when Windows began to load it checked the HKLM\Machine and HKLM\System entries in the registry and found that they did not match the characteristics of the HP but I thought that it would just go into the "Found New Hardware" routine and correct that. It didn't. So I have 2 ideas I'd like to try to see if I can get around that.

1) Export the registry entries HKLM\Machine and HKLM\System from the HP XP and then Import them into the eMachines XP registry before shutdown and then move the eMachines HDD over to the HP. Then the eMachines HDD registry should contain the correct info for the HP computer.

or

2) Boot into DOS on the HP from CD and then copy the registry files of the HP to a folder on the eMachines HDD and then copy the folders \Program Files, \Documents and Settings and \Windows over from the eMachines HDD to the HP SATA drive and then copy the registry files back to the HP HDD.

The only question I have about idea 2 is can DOS copy files from a PATA HDD to a SATA HDD? The SATA HDD is set to IDE mode on the HP in the BIOS setup.

Would appreciate your thoughts on this. Thanks.
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  #2  
Old November 18th, 2020, 03:06 PM
Ned Seagoon's Avatar
Ned Seagoon Ned Seagoon is offline
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Either method could work if the two machines are identical, if not neither method is advised.

Registry entries are generated during the installation process and match the software to the hardware, if the hardware is different the details could be incorrect.
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Old November 18th, 2020, 05:54 PM
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Murf Murf is offline
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1. You cannot copy programs from one drive to another i.e., transfer the folders \Program Files. Programs must be reinstalled.

Why go thru all this trouble, just clone the drive to another. You cannot take a drive from one computer and put in another and expect it to boot. 99% of the time it will not as drivers/reg entries/hardware is different.
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Old November 19th, 2020, 12:18 AM
justacruzr2 justacruzr2 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ned Seagoon View Post
Either method could work if the two machines are identical, if not neither method is advised.

Registry entries are generated during the installation process and match the software to the hardware, if the hardware is different the details could be incorrect.
I think both of you do not completely understand. I am cloning the XP drive on the eMachines to a spare drive that will then go into the HP (only temporarily) so I can copy the eMachines XP system over to the HP's main OS drive. It will already have the HP's XP registry entries for HKLM\MACHINE and HKLM\SYSTEM. This where in the registry information about the hardware of a computer is stored. So that the drive I take over to the HP from the eMachines will look like it was always on the HP. One note first: this eMachines drive has already been in the HP so that the HP computer would install it into the registry using the "Found New Hardware routine". Then I can copy over the folders I already mentioned which contain all the programs (from \Program Files and \Windows) all the settings (from \Documents and Settings which also has a part of the registry) and when you copy over \Windows that will also contain \System32\Config which contains the remaining registry files. This "donor" drive (from the eMachines) will be the boot drive on the HP for the copying. But one question remains:

Can DOS copy files from a PATA HDD to a SATA HDD? The SATA HDD is set to IDE mode on the HP in the BIOS setup.

Last edited by justacruzr2; November 19th, 2020 at 12:50 AM.
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Old November 19th, 2020, 12:31 AM
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renegade600 renegade600 is offline
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yes DOS can copy files. but it you who do not understand what you are trying to do and the end results the others was referring to.
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Old November 19th, 2020, 12:57 AM
justacruzr2 justacruzr2 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by renegade600 View Post
yes DOS can copy files. but it you who do not understand what you are trying to do and the end results the others was referring to.
Thanks for the reply. But can it do it between a PATA HDD and a SATA HDD with the SATA HDD set to IDE mode in the BIOS?
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Old November 22nd, 2020, 01:26 AM
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Murf Murf is offline
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A HARD DRIVE is a HARD DRIVE, does not matter what type, if the computer sees it it can copy from or to it.
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