What Happened ??? Hard drive

[owenbrittont]

I was using a USB transfer device to transfer info from a laptop HD
Shut computer down restarted. Computer will not start unless it has the Win XP disk in the CD.
Otherwise it will not boot. I pulled out the HD and have drained the system. Reformatted disk reprogrammed still will not boot without disk in \CD . Tried with three or four other Hard drives.

[Jerry K]

Do you have the bios set to where the C:\ drive is the first boot device?

What exactly were you trying to do and what were you using to do it with? Need a few more details as I don't understand what you're trying to do.

[owenbrittont]

Yes C: is set as the boot drive.

I do repairs on people's computers. I bought a transfer wire set up plugged into USB port. Has a tip to attach to plug in a separate drive. I got the information from the second drive. Unplugged USB, Shut down computer. When I went and started up the computer, it now says no drive Bootable CD not available. No HD Available. I shut it down placed Win XP Cd in drive fires right up. Reformtted disk reprogrammed it same thing. Tried this on 3 other drives same thing

Not sure what else to say....

[Jerry K]

How did you copy the files from the data drive to the target drive, eg: drag and drop, copy, other? You must use a backup software made for that purpose as drag and drop or copy files will not put everything on the target drive that's needed to make the drive bootable.

Do all the drives have the same IDE or SATA interface?