win xp emergency

[900donuts]

my dads windows machine is fried. it is turning off randomly. i opened it up and saw what i believed to be domed capacitors

I have another computer setup with out a hard drive all the parts are from the same era but its no an identical match can i take the hard drive out and put it in the spare computer and will it boot or allow me to re-register xp

the windows xp hard drive is an OEM install

thanks in advance

[ilioscio]

You should be able to put the hard drive in the other computer (shouldn't have to do any funny registering), although when you boot for the first time you may have lots of problems with missing drivers for the new machine.

[Grukmuck]

you might want to go to the manufacturers website and get the drivers you need, if you have access to the internet that is. they should have them on the support section.

i had to do that with my gateway laptop and burnt them to a disc so i have a hard copy. that way i can just pop in the disc and away i go.

[tturrisi]

1. download the drivers & burn to cd.
2. put drive in other computer.
3. boot in safe mode and use device manager to remove the different hardware. (video, audio, net adapters, etc)
4. reboot normal & let windows auto detect & prompt for hardware drivers.
5. install drivers beginning w/ motherboard chipset drivers.