My business application computer died last night. What to do?

[TheForce]

This box is a windows XP with all the updates. I run certain software on it that has no modern equal so I need to continue with a windows XP for the foreseeable future.
So what happened was the computer has been shutting down and rebooting on it's own for the past week, more frequently for the past 48 hours. It appeared to be the power supply. Last night the thing finally died as the little green LED on the power supply was very dim. I pulled the supply out and connected one I had on the shelf as a scrap for junk box parts and the computer fired up and ran for about 30 minutes then this power supply started to go clank clank clank noise and kept rebooting the computer. So, I pulled this one out and found another junk box part. This one was too big to fit in the case and I had labeled it "New" as it was a replacement for my newest computer to just upgrade the wattage. This one has been running the computer overnight without incident so I think I can just buy a new 450 watt supply and be back in business.

Now for my concern... Given that this box is quite old, I think it was one of the first dual core processors intel made I really should be considering an upgrade. If I buy a new CPU box and swap out the C drive with all my programs with the drive set from this old computer, will the XP OS be able to boot this computer and automatically go online and find all the right drivers for the new machine?
Years ago, I did this and it worked but took the update about 5 hours to complete. I don't know if the current XP with SP3 will do that. I don't want to jump to Vista or windows 7 since I may have compatibility issues with older 16 bit and 8 bit software apps that now work fine with XP.

Should I just try to keep this old box running or try the XP on a new box of hardware? I don't want to continue to work this way-

 

[harshness]

You CANNOT easily boot a drive from a different platform in a new computer. There will typically be much suffering trying to get the right drivers installed (assuming they exist in the XP domain).

You'll also have to beg Microsoft to reactivate Windows on a machine where everything but the hard drive has changed.

 

[TheForce]

That's what I figured. If worst comes to worse could I extract the new computer's drive and save for later, install a new C drive and install a new copy of windows XP? then reinstall all my apps? Or' did MS already obsolete XP and won't activate this anymore?

 

[mdram]

you should be able to boot into safe mode on a new pc with the hold hd, i stress the should, its 50/50
i would dl any drivers for it first and install them in safe mode if you can got it running
and as harshness said, if there are drivers, and if you can get it activated

your other option is if you get a new pc, make certain it has windows 7 with xp mode
most xp software can use this to run if it wont run in 7

Download Windows XP Mode

 

[RandallA]

Whenever I upgrade hardware and keep the hard drive, I just do a Repair install in Windows XP and then upgrade the drivers. I think you should be able to reactivate Windows.

 

[harshness]

The process needs to be something like this:

1. Get some manner of XP machine up and running without any "help" from your current system (don't use any migration tools).
2. Install your software.
3. COPY your data across -- DO NOT move it.

Since this is your "business application" machine, it probably wouldn't hurt to work from a copy of your existing C: drive.

 

[TheForce]

I have all my personal data on a D drive and just installed software on the C drive. Cookies, temps and stuff like that ofcourse is still on the C drive as well as the documents stuff but important documents I have copied over to the D drive anyway.

I also keep a monthly clone of my C drive that is verified to boot. I always check that before storing it away until next month. The D drive I backup to a big backup drive weekly.

Things are running stable now so maybe this was just a power supply problem. I'm going to run out and get a proper sized supply at Comp USA later today. The one I have on in the picture is way too big to fit. It is a 650 watt supply that I pulled and replaced in another bigger computer with a 1Kw commercial supply because that machine has 6 hard drives and 2 Blu-Ray burners.

Randall- That sounds like a good first approach. You sounded like you have done this and windows reactivated. The only other application on this box that would need activation keys is Sony Vegas but not only do I never use this machine for video editing but I would not pay for the upgrade of it. I have newer stuff on other machines. Everything else doesn't require a key update so I'm good there.

I also want to try that win 7 with XP support as that sounds like my ultimate solution for future proofing. If it works!

 

[mdram]

I also want to try that win 7 with XP support as that sounds like my ultimate solution for future proofing. If it works!

thats its purpose. its runs win xp inside of win7, all software is installed to a virtual pc.
the little ive played with it it works fine, even that old windows downhill ski game worked

 

[RandallA]

Randall- That sounds like a good first approach. You sounded like you have done this and windows reactivated. The only other application on this box that would need activation keys is Sony Vegas but not only do I never use this machine for video editing but I would not pay for the upgrade of it. I have newer stuff on other machines. Everything else doesn't require a key update so I'm good there.

I do it all the time at work and the programs and data are untouched. The only thing is that I use the Volume licensing key so I've never had to call Microsoft to activate anything. Search for Windows XP Repair installation. Here's one site with instructions:

Repair Windows XP - How To Perform a Repair Installation of Windows XP - Part 1 of 2

Actually, I don't even think it asks me to activate Windows. We only have WinXP Pro. Is your version Pro?

Found this to save your Windows XP Activation Information if you do a clean install.

http://netsecurity.about.com/od/windowsxp/qt/aaqtwinxp0829.htm

 

[Frank Jr.]

Even if you decide to purchase a new machine you could replace the power supply in the old one and keep it as a backup.

 

[navychop]

Please let us know how this turns out.

 

[TheForce]

Navy- Went to CompUSA, picked up a 430watt supply for $19.95 and been working fine since.
I've been real busy with 3D shooting and editing lately. Bought 2 3D cams and looking to get 3D panel monitor for the edit workstation so I need to save the budgeted $$ for that as opposed to upgrading a CPU that otherwise is doing a good job.
Three years ago I built this video editing box to edit and render HD faster than real time and thought I'd be done. Now, I'm into 3D and the MVC file structure brought that system to it's knees. I'm doing preliminary design work and looking at processors like Xeon X5680 and Core i7-980X technology. I don't know if I'll spring for such a system as there are other work-arounds to consider besides hardware solutions. As a comparison- my system which can render 4 composite HD video streams at a rate of 50-55 frames a second can barely render 3 frames per second of a single 3D MVC video in Full HD. The bad part is, being now semi retired, I don't have the revenue stream in the business to justify the cost and 3D is more of a labor of love rather than a business decision.