Old hard-drive in new box, will it work?

[cekeys]

After my inherited compaq is crashing after about 10 minutes of operation, I feel the need to grab a new computer.

Since I'd prefer XP, I was wondering, can I simply build the budget build without the hard drive, transplant the old hard drive into the new box, and boot up? Will it work? Obviously I'll need new drivers & software, but what should I expect?

[The Wise Monkey]

You will need to run a repair of the OS - do you have the original XP installation CD?

[cekeys]

It was self contained, as I understand it. It has a partitioned drive which handles reinstalling windows. I do have a separate Windows XP CD though.

[The Wise Monkey]

If you boot from the XP CD and proceed as if you are going to install a fresh copy i.e. press Enter, then F8 to continue, it should ask if you want to repair an existing installation. What this will do is replace all of the main Windows files whilst keeping all of your programs and data intact. You will lose bookmarks from IE and will need to download all the updates again, but that's not too much of a hassle.

I would recommend making a backup of your data before you do this though.