Compaq hard drives

Well, thanks to the two people that answered my last question!

But now...there arises yet another problem. I am upgrading (Switching out one hard drive for another.) They are both Compaq's. I have done everything imaginable to get the newer one to boot. However the newer one is still an older hard drive and it has data on it that I need desperately.
But as I've said, it will not boot. (No, nothing is wrong with the data ribbon, all the power supplies are fine, all the settings are correct in the CMOS. The drive spins up and there are no error codes. Yet it will not boot past the Computer Setup.)
Now, I have been told that Compaq uses a particular code somewhere in the Bios Data Area so that you must buy a floppy disk from them to be able to disable the code and install a different hard drive.

Is this true?

And if so, are there any ways around buying the code disabeler from Compaq? Is there a way to recognize that code in the Bios area and remove it?

I would be most appreciative of any help any one may offer!

Thanks!

 

You should be able to hook that drive up as a slave and take the data from that drive onto the original drive.
DUTCH

 

Ok... so to get this straight... my understanding is that you are installing a new HD in place of the old one? Or do they both have an OS on them? What you need to do if the one is blank is install it as the primary master and put the old one on the same IDE as a slave. (or the secondary IDE as a master, but not on the same IDE as a cdrom) Then you need to use the software that came with the drive to image the old drive to the new one. If both HDs came from a compaq computer, then there shouldn't be a problem hooking the other up as a slave and transfering the data. You said the computer was old... you may need to flash the bios if it isn't recongizing the HD because it may be too big. If you are trying to install an OS off a formatted drive on an older compaq it is quite difficult.