[farmboy1993]

Hello! I had my old hardrive go bad, so I had a maxtor 120gb harddrive and installed it. I turned it back on. It came up the hp logo, then it went to a screen saying Windows didn't start sucessfully do to a recent hardware or software change. It give me options like safe mode, etc. I'm assuming I did something wrong when I replaced the hard drive, but I don't know what. Please help........ Thanks....Don.......

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how many hard drives were in the machine to begin with? how many hard drives are in there now? where did the replacement come from? did the replacement have windows installed on it?

[dsenette]

how many hard drives were in the machine to begin with? how many hard drives are in there now? where did the replacement come from? did the replacement have windows installed on it?

[farmboy1993]

It had only on hard drive in it. The old one had windows xp on it. The replacement came out of another comp. I didn't use anymore. It has windows XP on it too.

[dsenette]

do you have the XP disk that came with the computer? (the one that you put the drive in not the one that you took the drive out of)

[farmboy1993]

I have a 7-disk set that says it will return my comps. hard disk drive to its original software configuration. This is for the comp. that the hard drive went bad in.

[dsenette]

ok...well you'll want to do that....i would assume disk one is where you would start...are they CDs? if so put disk one in the cd drive and restart the computer...when prompted press a key to boot from CD and follow the instructions from there....if you get stuck post here

[farmboy1993]

Yes! They are cd's! I will run disk one now..........Thanks....If I have problems I will post I'll let ya know.....Lol.......

[farmboy1993]

Ok! I ran disk 1, with no problem. Put in disk 2 and it has a pop up screen that says C:\PRELOAD\BASE_A.INP not found. It gives me the options of Abort, Retry, and Ignore. What should I do?

[dsenette]

not sure...what happened after disk 1? what does disk 2 say on it (and the subsequent disks)? did you put disk 2 in after you got into windows?

[farmboy1993]

After disk one, It said please insert disk two. I did that and it took off copying files like disk on did, and at 37% it gave me that pop up screen. All the disks say the same thing on them as did disk one.

[dsenette]

hmm this does not bode well

does the computer have a sticker on it that has the windows key on it? do you have a real windows disk? (not the recovery disks that you're using now)

[farmboy1993]

Yes! It has the sticker on it with the windows key. It says windows xp home edition. I do have a new full, unregistered version of windows xp home edition.

[dsenette]

so you've got a copy of xp home that's never been activated or installed? is it OEM or retail (it should say so somewhere on the package)

[farmboy1993]

I just bought it off ebay a few days ago. It says it's a ...Original GENUINE MS Retail Commercial Version and NOT an OEM, Academic, or CD-R copy....

[dsenette]

neat! hehe does it have a cd key sticker on it (similar to the one that's on the computer)?