Hi, I'm trying to install a second hard drive on a Windows XP based system. It's an already formatted and used hard drive from from my XP based cpu. I am trying to install it on my friends cpu because it has my cheat sheets for a draft at 5pm pst and I do not have the rest of my cpu here with me on vacation.
I have moved the connector in the back to the "slave" position for the new hard drive and tried different configurations for the already installed one, but cannot get it to work. The closest I can get has the new install as a slave and it will show up on the installed drive, but I cannot access the files. It says it's locked.
Conversely, when I select the new hard drive as the master and the old as slave it wants me to enter a product code, which I do not have (it's taped to my cpu back at home). Can anyone help?
Are you saying that you have a drive that has an OS on 1 partition already?
You may need to create a new partition.
I wouldn't mess with the jumpers I've hooked up 2 harddrives before without touching the jumpers. However, one of them didn't have a windows partition on it.
Try putting the jumpers back to normal. Or why not just get a USB adapter.
Try setting them both as Cable Select (CS or something on the jumper pins). You may have a BIOS issue too .. I know I've had that happen before, but it usually doesn't boot if that's the problem. Could you not just put your HD in by itself and copy your files to a USB jump drive or something then put the original HD back in and copy them from the jump drive? I can't believe cheat sheets are prohibitively big file sizes.
EDIT: You may also not be able to have two drives in the computer at the same time that both have XP installed on them. It could be a situation where they're both trying to boot simultaneously. If you really want to get it to work you may have to do something really convoluted and involved ... I'm not overly familiar with Windows boot sequences and stuff, so I'm not totally sure about that. But you're best bet is still to just use a jump drive route I say. Especially if it's just to copy files.
Yea I'd like to just use my HD (versus my friends HD. I'm putting mine in his cpu) exclusively, but when I hook it up that way it asks for a product activation code, which I don't have. It's back at home and I'm on vacation. Another catch is that I have excel and he doesn't, so I'm not sure the copy trick would work.
Chrisy Moltisanti wrote:Yea I'd like to just use my HD (versus my friends HD. I'm putting mine in his cpu) exclusively, but when I hook it up that way it asks for a product activation code, which I don't have. It's back at home and I'm on vacation. Another catch is that I have excel and he doesn't, so I'm not sure the copy trick would work.
Oh, OK, I misread your original post then. I have no idea why it's asking for an XP code though. I've done the same thing and it worked fine.
The question that's begging to be asked though, is why on earth do you take your HD on vacation?
Chrisy Moltisanti wrote:Yea I'd like to just use my HD (versus my friends HD. I'm putting mine in his cpu) exclusively, but when I hook it up that way it asks for a product activation code, which I don't have. It's back at home and I'm on vacation. Another catch is that I have excel and he doesn't, so I'm not sure the copy trick would work.
XP asks for the activation code when there are major changes to the system hardware. Trying to plug it into a different box would be considered a major change (or else everyone could beat copy protection by installing XP on one box over and over and giving the hard drives away).
Chances are that you don't have file permissions for the slave drive, set it back up to where you could see the old drive but the files were locked. You should be able to change the owner to Administrator and be ok. Boot up in safe mode and right click/Properties on the cheat sheet file. Change the owner in the Security/Advanced tab of the Properties menu.
Chrisy Moltisanti wrote:Yea I'd like to just use my HD (versus my friends HD. I'm putting mine in his cpu) exclusively, but when I hook it up that way it asks for a product activation code, which I don't have. It's back at home and I'm on vacation. Another catch is that I have excel and he doesn't, so I'm not sure the copy trick would work.
Oh, OK, I misread your original post then. I have no idea why it's asking for an XP code though. I've done the same thing and it worked fine.
The question that's begging to be asked though, is why on earth do you take your HD on vacation?
For ze draft of course! It was still warm at the airport and they got a little freaked, but luckily the manager knew what it was.
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by Chrisy Moltisanti » Thu Mar 08, 2007 8:14 pm 
