[AspenLeaves]

So I had an emachine that I replaced the motherboard on. I had a new hard drive where the operating system was installed XP Pro (I took this to a shop). No passwords on that one. I have gradually been changing the security permissions on my old hard drive because everything was on my admin account. But the computer kept freezing after approx about an hour's worth of work. I did a registry first aid clean up but Now, it won't boot at all (it gets to the windows xp pending screen and then the hard drive clicks and restarts, it never gets to the log in screen and won't boot in safe mode)and I have half the data still on the old drive and half on the new drive.

I got a new computer. I connected the old hard drive to the new computer as a slave...even in safe mode I couldn't get to where I could change the security issues. So I went back to the old computer. I was pleased to see that I could at least get to the boot screen if I pressed F9 and told it to boot off the old drive. However I can't remember my passwords. I think it had a default administrator password of nothing, but I can't boot in safe mode on the old drive.

So...if I do this loginrecovery.com program will it get the password for the slave drive or do I need to reconfigure the pins. Also, it appears that a pin is missing on the slave drive (it used to be the master). I really haven't done anything hardware wise for about six years and it wasn't something I know well. So is there a good pictorial website that explains about this hard drive issue?

I really appreciate any advice.

[JeremyW]

The new hard drive probably won't boot because the hardware it was installed on is too different from the hardware you're trying to boot from. You'll need to reinstall Windows on it.

As for making the old HDD a slave, go to the manufacturer's website and punch in the model number. They should give you jumper positions.

Also, it appears that a pin is missing on the slave drive

Do you mean the jumper? If so, you should be able to pick one of these up at any local computer shop.

[biggles77]

Also, it appears that a pin is missing on the slave drive

Middle pin bottom row of the IDE connector is normally not there.

[rvalstar]

Looks like you need to pick the disk you like, make it master, and do a "repair". Search these forums. Here are some examples:

Originally Posted by arberibrahimi

Instead of using recovery console, try windows repair. If windows xp instalation finds your existing crashed XP use windows repair.

Windows repair most of times saves your documents and only repairs errors.

Here is a link that can help in this case:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Tell me if this was helpfull

Originally Posted by rvalstar

If you just do the repair without the Shift-F10, doesn't it reset the SAM anyway and ask you for a new Administrator password?

If not (been a while since I did a repair), here's a nice link to a recipe for this Shift-F10 approach:

http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/p...cle.asp?ID=305

As always, no express or implied warranty nor any recommendation to pursue this approach.

As always, have a good backup (Ghost or equiv.) before undertaking such an endeavor.

[StillAsleep]

BARTPE as your alternate OS to login to the bad puter?

It rocked for me and boots from CD as a "lite" XP that (with the RIGHT plugins) allows network access so you can slide those all-important files and jpgs across to another computer.

You will need a switch or hub to see the new computer.

StillAsleep Stacy