hard drive swap help

this is because XP is able to detect the fact that you have moved the OS to a new box and hence it refuses to work..

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It may be even more basic than that. The above sounds like it is some kind of Windows Validation function, where if the hardware changes a call to Microsoft is required in order to explain why the O/S was moved to a different computer.

I think it is more likely that the motherboard and other drivers that are set up to run on the first machine on the Hard Drive are not able to run the hardware on the second.

This is a common problem when people try to simply "move" an XP installation from one system to another.

The real problem is that it sometimes works. I have seen a Hard Drive be able to move successfully from one AMD machine to another, but never from AMD to Intel. And sometimes it won't go from AMD to AMD.

Even if it "works", the drivers are all bunged-up and not correct for the new system, which they causes a cascade of other problems.

Most people recommend that you don't even try to do this type of migration, and instead take the time to back-up your data and settings and start on the new computer with a competely fresh install.

However, it just occured to me that perhaps you could run a Repair Install on the new computer and possibly XP will adapt itself to the new hardware. But honestly, your time would be better spent making an nLited XP disk and if you are going to save time, save time using that so you don't have to input all the data during the XP install process. Add Ryan's VM pack and you'll save time on having to update XP with all (I think it's about) 110 updates.