DaddyJim wrote:

> I am putting together a new computer for granddaughter for christmas and son
> wants me to use harddrive out of his computer that needs power supply, but
> drive is good. I'm using a motherboard that I have, but only get to
> verifying dmi pool data when booting, stops there, won't go further. Drive
> is out of HP Pent 4 2.53ghz. WD/80gb. I want to leave motherboard in older
> computer and install power supply later. How do I get new computer ( new
> case anyway) to boot. Have changed jumpers on drive, settings in bios, still
> no boot. I have win xp cd that I have, but older computer was bought with xp
> pre installed. He has lots of pictures he wants to keep from drive, and I
> know I can put another drive in, trying to save extra expense as this "pink
> case" was enough. Any help appreciated. Specs for motherboard I want to
> install are below. Thanks.
>
> Motherboard ID:
> 11/19/2001 VT8336-8233-6A6L-VM4AC-00
> Motherboard chipset:
> VIA VT8366A Appolo KT 266A
> Using AMD Athlon XP 1800 ( older stuff I know, but still works good enough
> for 7 yr old)
>
>

Based on what I had read, the first thing to do would be to salvage all
of the important pictures, files, documents, etc., from the hard drive.
Get an external USB drive enclosure for this purpose instead of making
it a slave in another computer system. Copy them to a safe place and
make additional backups as well.

The rationale is that Murphy's Law will happen. There already is an
issue, indicated by the "verifying DMI pool data" report. The solution
may not be an easy one but which could ultimately change the geometry
of the hard drive. And if this hard drive has an OS from another system,
it might not be compatible with the new, target system, the "repair" of
which can also be catastrophic. And then there is, of course, the option
of a new, clean install.

Sort out what needs to be logically and determine how to do it.