I take a working hard drive from one computer and put it in another computer (this computer works). The hard drive shows up in BIOS but Windows doesn't boot up. (PATA, primary IDE, cable select jumper, only device on the cable, everything appears hooked-up right) Thoughts? Also, BIOS doesn't recognize the hard drive when the jumper's on master, just cable select?

First of all I'm new to the CompTIA world. Working on A+. So I am not the one who is going to give you the answer, but I have an idea.

Maybe the hard drive image has settings that are specific to the host machine you pulled it out from? During boot up its checking for those settings/hardware and fails because it is a different machine.

Im going to follow your post and learn too.

If the drive is working in one computer and not the other, you have a few troubleshooting steps you can try:

* What cable are you using in the new computer? Try moving over both the hard drive and the cable.

* There's probably another PATA connector on your motherboard. Does the same problem occur on both ports?

* Are there any other devices on the PATA connectors on the new computer? Disconnect anything else that might be creating a conflict.

Let us know how it goes!

Using 80-pin. Tried prim-IDE, sec-IDE, w & w/o other devices on the PATA, w original cable ... all of the above. Always shows up in BIOS but locks up at the Windows safe mode screen. The drive does work fine in it's original machine and both machines are similar. Baffling!

btw: Thanks Prof Mess. With your help and Mike Meyers book, I'm learning everything I hoped to.

If you're getting to the Windows start screen, then it sounds like your hard drive is working just fine! It sounds like you have an operating system conflict with the Windows installation that's running on your new computer, probably with a hardware driver.

It's going to be difficult to troubleshoot this particular problem, because Windows is expecting you to have the hardware from your original computer. If it were me, I would probably back up the drive and re-install Windows right on top of itself (not a new installation). If everything goes well, your files and configurations will remain but your operating system configuration will be refreshed for your new hardware.

I'd like to expand on this if I may. I have two guinea pig computers I'm using to learn from; they both work. Computer A has an AMD chipset, Athlon CPU, and 80G hard drive. Computer B has a Nvidia nForce chipset, Athlon CPU, and 60G hard drive. When I put A's hard drive in B's unit, it gets to the Windows "safe mode" screen and reboots itself. When I put B's hard drive in A's unit, it it gets to the Windows "safe mode" screen and freezes.

Update: I see the problem is that the hard drives fail because they're trying to load device drivers form different machines. I ended up booting from the Windows CD and reformating and reinstalling.

Prof Mess: How could I have reinstalled Windows "on top of itself" to save files and configurations? Also, can I make two partitions on a drive and install Windows one for each machine?

Really nice and useful comments to see. I think now a days there are more are looking for SSD's rather than the older ones, as the has no moving parts and have longer life and also has much smaller size with light weight and consumes less energy too.