Second hard drive

[KripDiggler]

So I have 2 POS compaq's. One was my computer one is a friends donation. I want to take the HD from mine and put it in his since mine doesnt fire up it just makes a really loud fan noise.

Change the HD's and I get a code purple error. HP wont help me unless i pay 50 bux for tech support on the phone. Luckily I didnt and chose the free web chat help. She tried saying about some tatooing crap for 250 bux and then tried to help me set it to secondary (free). basically a waste of my night.

Got the new hard drive installed and plugged the SATA cord into the only other SATA plug I could see on the motherboard (diagonal from the first SATA plug). Still get the error. Not sure if there is somethgin i am missing? She almost had me download some BIOS file to change settign on ym new computer.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Crimsonbanshee]

Interesting read here Krip

http://www.geek.com/forums/topic/code-purple

[Allara]

What in the blue fuck is a tattoo (in the context of a computer)?

Fucking Compaq. Stay away from them.

E: According to Wikipedia: "A digital signature placed inside a computer's BIOS, used for authenticating some software licenses." Fail.

[Domathoine]

Interesting that you bring this up Krip... I'm glad I've got the answers! There are really two options, although the second is garunteed to work and may end up being faster.

The first option is to go find the chipset drivers for whatever motherboard you are running. You might be able to do this if you know the model of the computer you were running before. Otherwise, you'll have to open up the case and take a gander on the actual motherboard itself. Once you install the chipset drivers, putting in the new HDD should be a snap. However, this doesn't always work specifically because of those "tattoos" (What a terrible term...).

The other, much more reliable, option is to do a clean install of whatever operating system you are running. When you do the fresh install, the OS will assign new hardware IDs to whatever you're using currently and go from there automatically.

Hopefully you'll have some smooth sailing from here... Let me know how it goes!

PS: The only reason I have the answers is because this is the EXACT same problem I ran into this weekend trying to drop my HD into a new mobo//processor combo.

[KripDiggler]

Sorry I am not sure where to go from here.

Computer A : My computer. This has the hard drive i want to move to Computer B. Computer A will not start up. yes i can prolly find the make and model of the Mother Board on the physical MB.

Computer B: A gift. Do not have the password at this time to log in under the current hard drive in it. No discs or anything. No password to log into the currently installed OS. Reformat failed.

So where do i go from here? I assume you wanted me to login Computer B and download drivers for Computer A's MB. Then switch hard drives and all is well. Not an option at this time.

Second option I dont know how to instal a fresh OS to Computer A's hard drive without a disk or somethign I assume.

Have this feelign I am gonna be SOL here. : (

[Domathoine]

Without being able to log into computer B, I don't really know what to tell you...

If you COULD log into computer B, I'd tell you to download an .iso of whatever windows you currently use and burn it to a DVD and do a clean install that way...

[KripDiggler]

Curerently trying to restore computer B to factory original. Coulda sworn I tried this already but I dont get why it wouldnt work. Maybe I got all confused since I had both the HD's in the cage.....

Atleast I know where I need to go from here. Thanx Doma: )

Get the PW.....

[KripDiggler]

Woot got it up and running through system restore to factory default. Screw the old HD. Starting from scratch I guess now: (

So new problem. Bought a AGP card. Cheapest one in Best Buy. EVGA 6200 AGP. Wont fit in the AGP slot.......... GG. /Wrist

The card wont fit in the old computer AGP slot either which had the AGP card you gave me Doma. Yet the EVGA box says that cause some MB's violate AGP specs that this card may not fit in some Motherboards.

[Andaas]

Make sure it really is an AGP slot...

AGP (not used in systems made since 4-5 years ago), look like this (the topmost/maroon colored slot):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/AGP_slot.jpg

PCI-Express (used in current systems, and dating back 4-5 years), look like this (the 2nd from the top):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/PCIExpress.jpg

The images above are viewed with the leftmost part of the image being nearest the back/rear exposed part of the computer (ie, where the back panels of the cards are exposed to plug in your monitor, etc.).

The key difference you will notice is that a PCI-Express slot has a short 'notch' slot that is located closer to the REAR of your computer case; an AGP slot has a short 'notch' slot that is located closer to the FRONT direction of your computer case.

[KripDiggler]

yeah I have like the top image. bought a pci card to bypass and AGP specification problems. when installing the card I get a Incompatible VGA Adapter error and says it is turnign it off. most I could find about the error was about making sure i disabled onboard video cards first, runnign multiple displays, ati vs nvidia compatiblity, and making sure I had the plug plugged into the card and not the onboard VGA slot.

Did alot of looking for answers. Just gonna bring back another card and build a computer from scratch.

Once I got the computer running I came to find out its a pentium 4 and I want to run a better system than this. I can surf the web and use up the ms office 30 trial in the meantime runnign off the onboard gfx.