Maximum PC

have a compac presario 5400 ca and bought a msi kt400 ultra sr board with 512 mb 333mhz memory. have radeon 9600 xt 128 and a cpu upgrade to a athlon 3000+ from a 1 ghz t-bird. anyways can i just install all the new hardware into my new case and transfer my hard drive over. i did try this and the error kept coming up "ntldr not found" why can't this work any suggestions would be great. thx and good luck.perhaps i need a boot disk? or maybe change the bios settings???

You need a full copy of Windows. The one Compaq gives only works with the boards.

If you got the error "ntldr not found. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to reboot," you might not have the drive's parameters set correctly in the BIOS. They have to be exact. If your chipset is different, there might be issues getting the boot order correct. You may be able to run a repair, only of you have a Windows XP CD. The Compaq Restore CD's won't allow this function.

You might be able to fit the board in, however there are a few items:

1. Your Compaq Power Supply, at only 235w, is way underpowered. Use a MINIMUM of 300w, and only from a top-line vendor.

2. Your Compaq Case's front I/O might not be wired properly for a different motherboard.

As Blondie (Our resident Compaq Guru) has stated, the copy of Windows that is preinstalled on your hard drive will most likely only work on a Compaq-Equipped BIOS. You might be able to boot into Windows, but an activation will surely be in order.

SC64

thanks for the input. i will try the xp cd and pray for the transfer. as the case is some sort of small custom mid tower it only has room for three pci slots and the msi board that i bought has six so there is no room for that board in the original case from compaq. i have a new one it fits great ( lots of room etc.) i failed to metion that i did buy a 300 watt power supply and had it installed during my my trials and errors. once again thanks and wish me luck. birddog out.