# Having a hard time with e machines hard drive



## sammy29926 (May 2, 2008)

Hi everybody,
Friend of mines e machines d series desktop's psu burned up adn that taking the mobo with it. She asked me to help her with th ecomputer since she has bunsh of programs and her bus program ont hehard drive.. I purcahsed anew psu and mobo but after i installed everthing and power it up .. i see the boot menu and it detects the hard drive cd rom drive ect. but it doe snot load the windows at all... it gives me an error saying that windows did not shut down properly and gives me 5 option to choose ..
Safe mode
Safe mode with command prompt
Safe mode wiht networking
last know good configuration
Start the windows normally..
which option i check it goes back to boot menu.. liek it turned th ecomputer on and off..
when i install the hard drive in my desktop i can see it as aecond drive and see th efiles ect.
so my question is how can i get that hard rive work properly alone..
I wonder if e machines installed a some kinda safe or securty program in it..
Thank you for your help
Sammy


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## Threeflow (May 2, 2008)

Your best bet is to copy her important files from her hard drive onto yours whilst you have it connected to your computer, once you have done that you can attempt a reinstallation of the operating system on her drive.

I highly doubt you will get her machine to boot into the operating system alone, and the reason is this:
The operating system that is currently installed on that drive, when it boots up, it is attempting to load hardware and software drivers for her previous configuration. You have since switched to a different motherboard which most likely has different northbridge and southbridge chipsets, different chip powering the LAN port, different onboard video (if any). So when the operating system attempts to load its drivers as usual during boot-up, it encounters an error: the hardware has changed, but its still loading the old drivers.
This will cause it to reboot itself and you will be stuck in and endless loop!

You will need a copy of the operating system on a disc to perform a 'repair' installation. The problem here is, e-machines (along with every other PC brand such as gateway, hp, acer etc.) do not supply an operating system disc with their machines. You're lucky if they even provide a recovery disc, but usually they provide you with a means to make your own recovery disc instead (I hope your friend did this already!)
Even so, a 'recovery' from the emachines disc may not work, as it will be trying to provide driver support for the old motherboard that is toast.

If you can get a hold of the correct version of the operating system disc, and do a repair install, or even a complete reinstallation using her existing CD-key if necessary, you're golden. But not before backing up all her important files onto your computer first just in case 


Hope this information helps!


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## sammy29926 (May 2, 2008)

Threeflow,
thank yuo for th edetailed explanation.. So my second question is if i buy a replacement mobo for that e machines computer it should load the win xp..
Thanky ou 
Sammy


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## kenkickr (May 2, 2008)

What you can do is run a repair install of Windows XP.  The previous board drivers are what usually causes the problem but a repair will clean those reg entries out and in turn will let you boot back into XP with all apps and such still accessible.  

To run a repair install of course boot from the XP CD.  The first time it asked to do a repair do not do it but go on.  After it searches for a previous Windows install and finds it you should get another option to repair.  Do this and away u go!


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## Threeflow (May 3, 2008)

If you replace the motherboard with the exact same model, then yes. You would have to contact eMachines directly to see if you can get one from them.
Good luck!


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