Sony Vaio XP Pro user - needs recovery, dead motherboard 1

[daveoasis]

Sony Vaio XP Pro user - needs recovery, dead motherboard due to a flood.

1. Copied all critical files - emails, doc's, etc from old drive to new drive. Installed Office 2003, all works well on this topic.

2. Tried booting old Sony hard drive on a non-Sony P4 motherboard - loads 1/2 way to drivers then fails. Sony says must use exact same mbd model to boot for their proprietary Windows XP.

3. Would like to review apps, etc. on old PC to reload or use Aloha Bob to transfer to new PC. I know I can see c:\programs\[program names], but this could save hours of work, configurations, etc.

Any ideas? Is there a non-destructive way to Reload XP Pro from Microsoft (instead of Sony recovery CD) for example? Or a better idea?

Thank you.

 

[wolluf]

Not quite sure what you're asking.

Assuming you have a valid key and an XP install CD, you could try a repair reinstall on the old Sony drive in different machine (I don't know how proprietary Sony installation is, but repair reinstall fixes 99% of cases where hard drive has been moved to different machine).

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341

 

[daveoasis]

wolluf - that seems valid. In checking with Sony, they told me the keyword to remember is "proprietary" so this will be interesting to try out.

I expect to test by Labor Day. Thank you for feedback,

Dave

Check logmein.com - interesting support functions available