Hi, I'm trying to install a new hard drive to replace an old one--I'm replacing my 3-year-old 60 GB Maxtor hard drive with a 300 GB one. It's set as a slave for my boot-drive (E), and the drive being replaced is D. I unplugged the old drive, plugged in the new drive (which is formatted already), and I couldn't get it to work--when I try to boot up windows, I get the message "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disc", and some other text. Windows refuses to load when I have the new drive plugged in--I always have to have the old drive plugged in, otherwise windows xp simply refuses to start.

I think this might be because when my old drive (D) isn't plugged in, E is called "D" instead, so that whatever looks for windows can't find it (because the E drive is now the D drive). After trying a lot of stuff for the past 3 days, I give up--can someone help me out here? What am I doing wrong?

Hi Mechromancer,

Welcome to PCHF.

Mech, if your Windows was installed on drive E, and it is now drive D, you will NOT be able to boot. All your registry links, settings, program shotcuts would be pointing to E:. There is no safe way to remap drives on a partition containing the operating system.

Your safest option is to install Windows XP on your new HDD and then copy what you need across to your new installation.

Hi, thanks for the advice. Is there any way to carry over installed programs and other such settings between windows installations?

Some software can be copied from disk to disk, because they have settings stored in ".ini" files.

Other software such as Microsoft Office will not work, because the settings are stored in the Windows Registry.