From: Groleau+news@FreeShell.org   
      
   Son's HP laptop broke both hinges.  Needs machine (and its contents)   
   for college and can't wait for shipping for hinges I could install.   
      
   Doesn't want to pay $40 for overnight, or $70 for a local repair,   
   so instead (go figure), he paid $300 for a Fujitsu Lifebook.   
   With Vista.   
      
   Beside the fact of Vista's reputation, there's also the issue   
   of learning it AND reinstalling his various apps without a lot   
   of time.   
      
   So, we want to swap hard drives.   
      
   LOTS of stuff on the web contradicting each other.  Some pages even   
   contradict themselves, like a Microsoft KB that says basically,   
   "It can't be done, and here's how to do it" followed by a lot of   
   registry hacking that I wouldn't touch even if I understood it.   
      
   After reading a few, though, and talking with the tech where he   
   bought the thing, I get the feeling that the thing to do is   
   boot from an XP CD and choose the repair option.   
      
   I have a legal XP CD from my MSDN license.  It starts to boot up,   
   and I know it is the CD by the sounds and the fact that some of   
   the screens I recognize from other installs.  BUT, eventually it   
   stops with the error that I would expect if I were trying to boot   
   from the hard drive.   
      
   In other words, the _CD_ is getting the error that it is supposed   
   to fix on the hard drive.  The hard drive won't even get that far,   
   they say because it's a different IDE controller.  Which puzzles me,   
   because how can you boot from a drive if reading the drive depends on   
   drivers that are on the drive? :-)   
      
   ANYWAY, looking for advice.....   
      
   --   
   Wes Groleau   
      
      There are two types of people in the world …   
      http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett?itemid=1157   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)