Old pc, reformatted HD, won't start windows.

I've got an old system that my daughter uses for AIM, etc., that somehow got a virus that I could not get rid of, so I reformatted the hard drive. Now when I put the hd back in the box, it will go through the bios, but when it starts to load windows, it restarts. The reformatted hard drive 9which is relatively new) boots windows just fine as a master drive in my gaming rig.

Specs:

mobo - Abit BX440 slotA
cpu - Intel PIII 450 (not sure exact model)
ram - 192mb of pc100
video - crappy 2x agp
sound - crappy sb
OS - WXP Pro

One problem I did find with the box was that the fan for the PSU had siezed, which I took apart and freed up. It spins now and obviously since the pc starts, the psu is delivering power.

This is quite an old rig that was actually my Tribes1 rig, that has been reliable until now, and worked fine for what my daughter needed.

I've tried booting in safe mode with the same results.

Has the old girl just finally given up the goat? Anything obvious that I'm missing here that could be the culpret?




EDIT: I'm posting the solution to the problem s omaybe it might help someone else with a similar problem in the future. This is probably obvious to most tech savvy people, but it's just something I forgot about and caused my own problem.

The reason for the problem is that I reformatted the hd in my gaming rig, and not in the box I planned to use it in. I did this to save time (much faster rig), and ended up losing lots of time instead. Since Windows2000, you must format your hard drive in the box you plan to use it in, or in an identical system, since motherboard and other system resources are stored on the hard drive that is being formatted.

Mods - leave or delete this post as you see fit.

The reason for the problem is that I reformatted the hd in my gaming rig, and not in the box I planned to use it in. I did this to save time (much faster rig), and ended up losing lots of time instead. Since Windows2000, you must format your hard drive in the box you plan to use it in, or in an identical system, since motherboard and other system resources are stored on the hard drive that is being formatted.
None of that is accurate. First of all, all you really needed to do was a quick format which takes like 5 seconds no matter what the box. A hard drive is not going to format any faster on a faster computer, the speed of the hard drive is the bottleneck, and hard drives are comparatively slow.

And as far as what's put on the hard drive during formatting, only partition information and file system stuff is what's put on there. No motherboard or system resources are installed until you start installing an OS.

NEVERMIND. I see what you did now. You installed Windows on to the hard drive on your faster computer. It would have been nice if you were a little more specific. Formatting means erasing all data from a hard drive, not erasing all data and reinstalling Windows. Yeah, that will cause problems.

None of that is accurate. First of all, all you really needed to do was a quick format which takes like 5 seconds no matter what the box. A hard drive is not going to format any faster on a faster computer, the speed of the hard drive is the bottleneck, and hard drives are comparatively slow.

And as far as what's put on the hard drive during formatting, only partition information and file system stuff is what's put on there. No motherboard or system resources are installed until you start installing an OS.

NEVERMIND. I see what you did now. You installed Windows on to the hard drive on your faster computer. It would have been nice if you were a little more specific. Formatting means erasing all data from a hard drive, not erasing all data and reinstalling Windows. Yeah, that will cause problems.

Yep my bad I was fairly vague about exactly what I did, which you finally figured out correctly.

Yep, it's called the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_abstraction_laye r) and it's specific to your computer's config. Glad you figured it out.

So I reformatted with the hd in the correct box, which took forever but eventually finished fine. After setting up profiles, I temporarily connected the hd as a slave to my other rig so I could move over drivers and install files, then moved it back as master. I then packed it up, brought it upstairs to my daughter's room, hooked it up and turned it on, and sure enough the screen goes black after the XP loading logo appears. Old computers are like old people, slow and cranky.

So I reformatted with the hd in the correct box, which took forever but eventually finished fine. After setting up profiles, I temporarily connected the hd as a slave to my other rig so I could move over drivers and install files, then moved it back as master. I then packed it up, brought it upstairs to my daughter's room, hooked it up and turned it on, and sure enough the screen goes black after the XP loading logo appears. Old computers are like old people, slow and cranky.
Try resetting the CMOS to defaults or removing the mobo battery for a couple minutes.

Try resetting the CMOS to defaults or removing the mobo battery for a couple minutes.

Never seen this before but by frustration I used F8 when booting and saw the option to enable VGA mode. Once I did that it was all good.