motherboard died, how do i retrieve hd data

Hello and thank you for your time, i have a HP computer i bought in 04 or 05
running XP media center, recently the motherboard died, i was going to wipe
the hard drive and use it in another comp i have but my wife insists that i
try to recover the data from the drive first, we have approx 5 years of
pictures on the drive of my first grandson, that we dont have copys of
anywhere else, so.. i tried to add it to my dell comp but the dell posts and
then does not load the windows xp pro shes loaded with, just a blank screen
after post, so then i disconected the dell drives and just try to boot with
the hp hard drive, it boots all the way to the xp media centers log in screen
then says that the O/S is not registered and that i may be using a pirated
copy of windows , it then gives me a screen to register online or by phone,
the dell is connected to the internet but wont connect, so i tried the phone
service but it gets to the point where i need to talk to someone at microsoft
then hangs up, like i said earlier , at first i was just going to retrieve
the data then wipe the hard drive and install it on another computer, BUT now
that microsoft wants me to jump through hoops just to retrieve MY data off of
MY hard drive, and since MY original computer is officially DEAD, i already
bought the rights to use THEIR software on one computer, now i want the O/S
also , so i can build another computer to replace the dead one, i will
probably have to buy another HP MB to use it though, now maybe im wrong in my
thoughts of this , but im tired of buying the same O/S software over and over
again, i have bought and still have MS dos 6.22 all the way up to vista 64
bit, some i have 3 or 4 copies of like win 95 and 98, can someone tell me how
i retrieve my personal data off of the hp hard drive, and possibly save the
O/S for future computer? Thank you

When you installed the HP disk in the Dell, did you ensure the jumpers were
properly configured for multiple drives?

That is, both set to Cable Select; or the Dell to Master and the HP to
slave?

Next suggestion would be to get a USB case for the HP drive, or one of the
external adapters (cheaper than a case) and connect the drive externally,
that way there's no conflict.
(example item:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812156101 )


"po'd_ms_user" wrote in message
...


Hello and thank you for your time, i have a HP computer i bought in 04 or 05
running XP media center, recently the motherboard died, i was going to wipe
the hard drive and use it in another comp i have but my wife insists that i
try to recover the data from the drive first, we have approx 5 years of
pictures on the drive of my first grandson, that we dont have copys of
anywhere else, so.. i tried to add it to my dell comp but the dell posts and
then does not load the windows xp pro shes loaded with, just a blank screen
after post, so then i disconected the dell drives and just try to boot with
the hp hard drive, it boots all the way to the xp media centers log in
screen
then says that the O/S is not registered and that i may be using a pirated
copy of windows , it then gives me a screen to register online or by phone,
the dell is connected to the internet but wont connect, so i tried the phone
service but it gets to the point where i need to talk to someone at
microsoft
then hangs up, like i said earlier , at first i was just going to retrieve
the data then wipe the hard drive and install it on another computer, BUT
now
that microsoft wants me to jump through hoops just to retrieve MY data off
of
MY hard drive, and since MY original computer is officially DEAD, i already
bought the rights to use THEIR software on one computer, now i want the O/S
also , so i can build another computer to replace the dead one, i will
probably have to buy another HP MB to use it though, now maybe im wrong in
my
thoughts of this , but im tired of buying the same O/S software over and
over
again, i have bought and still have MS dos 6.22 all the way up to vista 64
bit, some i have 3 or 4 copies of like win 95 and 98, can someone tell me
how
i retrieve my personal data off of the hp hard drive, and possibly save the
O/S for future computer? Thank you

po'd_ms_user wrote:

Hello and thank you for your time, i have a HP computer i bought in 04 or 05
running XP media center, recently the motherboard died, i was going to wipe
the hard drive and use it in another comp i have but my wife insists that i
try to recover the data from the drive first, we have approx 5 years of
pictures on the drive of my first grandson, that we dont have copys of
anywhere else, so..

Once you do what others have suggested, maybe you should give some
serious thought about scheduling regular backups so that if you run
into a situation where recovering your pictures becomes impossible,
you will have them stored in that backup.