I have dilemma! My new PC FINALLY showed up!! After ripping my hard drives, and necessary goods out of my old PC, I stuffed them into my new box. Upon boot-up I encountered issues (tech issues) with XP not liking the new box due to restore points and stuff. Anyway, my uncl;e and I are beating this harddrive (120GB IBM) to get all of the partitions that I have lost back. If anyone in here has seen this kind of stuff before, would you mind letting me know what you have seen like this please? We are using ALL kinds of forensic software to pull the data back, and will hopefully get it. I just was hopign that anyone who has see nthis type of stuff could drop in some advice. I have 110GB on that drive that I want back....MAINLY my Vue stuff and the 6GB of stuff that go with it. THANK YOU!! Akenaton

I don't understand Akenaton. What stuff please? I suppose you spoke about something special from Vue?

Yes, I am a little confused also...Sharen

You can't just swap hard drives (especially with XP installed), and expect the PC to work. Your new PC should have an OS installed already, and the usual route is to backup the work on your old machine, and then transfer it to your new machine (e.g via CD or attaching the hard drive of your old machine as a slave). A lot of machines now have BIOS locked Operating System installed, so transfering Operating Systems is near impossible. Cheers

Thanks Cheers, But I bought this PC OS-less. The 40GB drive came unformatted. I have swapped drives in machines a LOT of times without problems, but they weren't XP OS's. It seems that XP has MAJOR issues because of the restore points and hardware configs. Unfortunately, my partitions were almost smoked from this transfer and even then The backup file would take WEEKS to complete when I get the partitions back (I have 110 GB of data on those partitions). Have you ever heard of this happening before? That is mainly why I posted this, was to see if anyone has heard of this before. I would like to think that I am very savvy with hardware and OS's, but this is something new to me. Thank you VERY much for the reply! Anything else you guys can submit would be awesome. : )

Also....The reason it deals with VUe is because I have about 6GB of Vue material that I want to retrieve. That is a huge compilation of hours and research that I don't want to thave to respend. I think that backing VUE stuff up in the future is in my cards. LOL

Well if XP was on one of the drives that's is your problem. The XP system is one operating system for one computer. You CANNOT swap it out for a different computer. It's impossible as you are finding out. You should have just burnt the vue dir to cd then plunked the drive in install xp and all the software and reinstalled the vue dir. That would hae worked. XP is crap, you got what you paid for. Garbage.... Every time you do what you are doing right now Micronot expects you to buy a new operating system period. Read the EULA. Don't buy XP. Enough is enough ! Can I add HA ha ha ha !!!!!! Sucker ! cause they got you right where they want you... how's it feel? Ya I know it's bad but hey don't blame me I never bought or wrote XP, you did !

You must remember that it is illegal to transfer single seat OS's from machine to machine...that is why XP has the security features that it does. The only thing I can suggest, is to put the drive back in your old machine, and see if you can retrieve some of your data... Cheers

Ummmm Thanks Pete....I think. I feel your angst when it comes to XP, but BELIEVE me when I say this... XP isn't my fault or anyone else's fault. When the WORLD is dominated by one OS (or style of OS), then the smart thing to do is follow suit. I LIVE in Microsoft...doesn't mean that I like it....just means that the world goes where the money is. Linux...GREAT! if you can hammer code...Mac....GREAT! if you want to surf the world for software that might not even exist. Windows...BUGGY! and Doomed to be full of marketing Rapes...the only way to fly if you want to have ALL of the software on the market. AGAIN!! I AGREE with your anger, but don't say that "I" or anyone else is responsible for the stuff....BUSINESS and CORPORATIONS are to blame...they are the ones that catered to Microsaoft's wallet and Marketing ploys. If the whole world buys it, and you use it, does that make you responsible? Not likely man. And by the way...I am one of those people that are in cyber space that is taking their toll on Microsoft....so if anything, you should be thanking us. NOW that I have said MY piece....Thank you for the post. If you have any feasible plans, please feel free to let me know....if you want to rant about the "Microsoft Propaganda/Marketing Rape Machine" then post on another page and I'll gladly join you in the verbal routing of Microshaft. Thank you, Akenaton

Well you're wrong, your wallet speaks louder than words and if everyone voted with there wallet there there would be no XP with a hardware lock period. Your all a bunch of lemmings jumping off the cliff. Micronot knows that. If nobody bough it they would have changed it, trust me. You are part of the problem no part of the solution. Now to reinstall your data you probibly have to do the put the drive back into your original computer and try to find it there. It may be too late already by the sounds of it. It depends on how much damage you did to it on the new machine. Oh BTW it gets better. What do they call it? Trusworthy computing? You might as well just give them your wallet when that comes out.

Alright Pete....I hear you man, and really don't want to argue about this. I'll private message you the logistics of where Microsoft and I stand. When we get this figured out I'll send you a message, and let you know what we did. As for the change machines idea....you got it man. That is what we were going to try if the partition recovery software that I bought didn't get me all of nmy partitions back. I DO appreciate the post man. Thanks

Oh by the way. If by chance you have a network card in both machines and you know how to set up a network. Two machines is easy if you have one of those funny cat 5 cables the one with the send recieve swapped. I don't know what it called. You could set up a local lan just with that wire and tranfer the data that way. You should have asked before you started but this is good anyway because people will read this thread and learn of the pitfalls so all is not lost. Like I'm assuming you do not have a burner or you you would not be having this problem right now. If you can burn the dir then do it that way, it's the easy way. You don't need to copy the Vue program only the extra data that you added to it. Search by date comes in handy then to find what you added to the program.

MightyPete : "I don't know what it called." A Cross Over cable ;o)

I DO have a crossover, but I want windows left intact so that I don't have to waste the media burning. Besides that, I want to tell Microsoft where to put it by proving their single seat garbage wrong. I KNOW that we'll get this, but it'll just be a culmination of what we know and what other ideas we get from people...like yourself. Rock on man...we'll beat this and post the way that we did it. Let the strongest mind prevail!!

Here I private messaged you this thread but I want to post it here so companies like E-On hopefully read it or anyone really. IMHO : Now my personal solution ? Well it's not the best but I got 98 SE here and I plan to use it for as long as I can. If Linux or some other OS does not come up with a proper workable solution in the mean time my computer days are numbered. I refuse to upgrade. I will not upgrade my operating system. If companies like E-On and others that I presently spend my hard earned cash on don't start supporting Linux or something else there days are also numbered cause as soon as I'm forced to upgrade. I will will not so I will not be buying the latest greatest Vue 6 or whatever. They're out of luck. I like the program but can't stand the OS. If I have to give up using computers so be it. I'm not a lemming. My personal opinion is the tech industry is down like really down but I don't think it has anything to do with the economy. There is lots of people like me waiting refusing to upgrade. That's the real problem. I have princibles and if i have to give up computers to keep those princibles then so be it. I don't really care. Lots of companies are going to suffer. This is just the tip of the ice burg. So if ya happen to be writing software in the world you would be very wise to plan on dumping Micronot to protect your bottom line. Maybe not completly dumping it but you better start supporting other op's or your paycheck is going to start getting really small. I think E-On has clued into this cause they brought out a mac version already. You might say ay it will never happen. Oh really? Well you just think of it for a bit. What USA 300 million people? Well it will not do you much good if the 6 billion others people in the world dump MS now will it? It's happening right now before your very eyes. Whole counties are dumping MS. Why? Hmmmm hardware locks and trustworthy computing.

AMEN TO THAT PETE<<<<deer in headlights. This isn't rocket science people...it's more like LEGOS<<I LOVE THOSE TOO. If you buy a car based on what the salesman says ALONE, then you need to be introduced to RESEARCH...use the internet DOH. I will give up the rant, but I feel that Pete<<

If you've actually lost data/fried your OS then this sounds much more like a hardware issue than anything to do with XP. Check your IDE cable and make sure it's not a 40 wire. The most recent motherboards' controllers expect an 80 wire. If you re-used a 40 out of an older machine, not only can you expect sporadic corruption, but using repair utilities will only make things worse. John

It's the hardware lock that's killing him and if you don't think so take a Xp drive from one computer and plunk it into a different computer. It breaks the OS and that is what it's suppose to do.

Can't check until I go to work on Monday - not going to screw up my own machines! But I've met similar problems on users setups twice recently - both times the IDE cable thing, so...

aken_aton; One possible work around is to get a smallish (say 20 gig) HDD and install XP on it, do all the registration jiggery pokery. Put the 120gig drive on the same ribbon as a slave drive. XP should recognize the HDD as existing in Device Manager. If it does, then check the attributes on that slave drive and tell windows that it is a removable drive. Doing this causes windows to treat it as a floppy or a zip disk; all it is concerned with then are the partition tables and formatting. It ignores the boot sector. You -should- be able to read your data then.

XP is keyed to your hardware set up. That is what the whole activation scheme is all about. I'll never downgrade to XP. I too hope e-on has the vision to support a Linux port. If not, I'll be joining Pete sans Vue when I have to buy my next computer for it is almost certainly going to be a Linux box. Hope DAZ and Curious Labs are listening too. jon

I've never done a boot disc transfer but it is a common question in hardware forums since it is a different process from what you do on the Win 9X series OS.

The following is lifted from:

http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=b21dd579150f08d5a23680c9cd958b77&threadid=25742&highlight=hard+drive

Keeping your XP settings when upgrading

Upgraded a system from Abit KT7 Raid to SuperMicro P4DCE+, dual xeon, WITHOUT having to reinstall all my programs, desktop settings under Windows XP Pro...and no reregistering required. Here's the scoop:

1. back up everything, of course...can't be too careful.
2. do the hardware.
3. the system will not be able to boot to XP, put in your XP Pro disk, boot from CD.
4. At the Welcome to Windows Screen, do not choose repair through the Recovery Console. Start Windows Setup.
5. Do the license code. After that XP looks for existing Windows installations.
6. When XP finds your previous setup, choose it with R for repair.
7. XP then goes out and finds your hardware and appears to be doing a standard install...but when it is done, your programs are there, your settings are there, your new hardware is now the hardware list.
8. When you reboot, your system may pause at a boot screen listing two installs. Pick the 1st one or let the clock tick down.
9. Go to System (in control panel or Window Key/Break). Choose the Advanced tab.
10. Choose Start-up & recovery; set time to display list of OS to zero...OS choice screen will be gone.

My previous standard was reformat and clean install...I really didn't want to do that...and turns out I didn't have to.

When you go to Windows Update, there will be some code to install, but still a pretty clean process.

I feel your pain. I am still running 98SE on virtual PC on my Mac. I will NEVER go to XP and those ridiculous protection schemes. The slammer worm is still causing problems - so just how great is M$ as an operating system if it can constantly be so EASILY hacked? MS protects no one - they only protect their highly over-inflated bottom line. Karma will catch up with them soon... MightyPete is dead on - a revolution is coming. Other countries aren't standing for this rubbish - and the writing is on the wall. Scott

WE GOT IT. We fixed it friday night. It ended up, that all we had to do to rectify this was to throw the xp disk into the drive, reboot and then choose fresh install.....then choose repair when you get your options. The install will show dynamic upgrade in the list of items being installed. This removes all otherdrivers etc, but still keeps your data and the registry intact. After that I had to reinstall all of the "updates" and pull the new drivers from my MOBO disk and invidia's site. Because of the friggin HARD TO READ sticker on the back of me NEW IBM drive, I had clipped the drive to 33.8 GB, SO before the repair to XP, we had to do a SYS C: from a dos prompt (boot disk) to rectify trhe verifying DMI pool data. Once that was all done, we were in business. My VUE is running better than I EVER could have expected with the 512 DDR400 and the 128MB overclocked TI4600. I am VERY HAPPY to saythe least. Anyone who runs into this problem in the future can feel free to let mek now and I'll write out detailed instructions as to what we did to alleviate ourselves of this problem. THANKS PETE! and all that posted!! Akenaton

You will love XP Akenton! I was going to post but got to the end and saw you had solved the problem. One of the reasons XP is as reliable as it is, is that it is fussy about drivers, old software and makeshift hardware configurations. I've been running XP for nearly two years....after moving to it from 98SE practically kicking and screaming. During that time I've had the equivalent of 2 blue screens (reboots in the case of XP) and then only because I hadn't defraged in 6 months! I spent this entire weekend cleaning up a bunch of messes on an employees computer running 98SE.....you know I almost forgot how much fun those "blue screens" can be!:) I think you will find that XP runs all of your software as well if not better than 9X ever did....good luck!

I actually DO like some of the features of XP. The fact that I don't have to reboot/turn off my machine for a month at a time is GREAT. I have only seen 2 BSOD's too...Roxio...forgot to install the patch before rebooting and an nvidia driver. Other than that...none. The BIG problem is that like many other OS's from M$, it is about as secure as a sieve with a gunshot through it, and you REALLY have to tweak it to turn off all of the garbage (GUI trash). I have had a MUCH better time with troubleshooting at work too...not as many problems, unless you count the user in that spectrum LOL.

You are right about the security issues. That is the one area that Linux seems to have the upper hand. Although, I suspect if Linux were as widely used and had the market share MS does, they would be experiencing a similar number of security issues:) Everyone wants to take on the guy with the most power :)

You might want to be aware that the Messenger service (that gadget you can send messages to peers with across a network) is subject to exploitation. If you are using this feature across a network, I believe there is a patch at Microsoft for this. I use XP Pro on a DSL connection....no network....and I was getting those little grey pop box messages from some school trying to sell me something! I'll be setting up a firewall eventually, but currently do not have one.

Not much you can do about other users.....XP does not have any solutions for them! :)

Hell man, use search and destroy to kill all of the adware/spyware that is hidden in your registry/program files. It is there...trust me. One you do that your net send ads will disappear. Also run tweakXP...they have a pretty damn good popup blocker in their software. Thanks, Akenaton

Wasn't talking about the "popup ads".....but rather the little gray message boxes that your server administrator sends you from time to time to remind you of network updates :) Some folks have figured out how to exploit it. You can disable Messenger Service (not MSN, but windows messenger service) to stop it or install a firewall. I've searched for spyware....have none :) This latest issue is relatively new. I discussed this adnauseum on another thread. Those on work networks finally understood what I was talking about. And it's "Hell, maam" :)