Booting Vista on Different PC Computers

[cccharlee]

I install Vista Ultimate on one PC. It is an HP Pavilion a1700n.

I remove the 40 GB IDE HD from the HP PC and put it into a Compaq EVO
510 PC.

Result: Vista does not boot.

I have researched the subject but still have not found a solution.

The microsoft vista deployment step by step seems awfully complex.

Has anyone found a simple way to solve this problem?

I have also tried the reverse (from compaq to HP PC): Same result!

With XP I could boot into safe mode or just boot normally and XP would
detect and install the new hardware it finds.

Somtimes I would need to install XP from CD on the target PC to copy
the boot.ini and hall.dll files to a usb flash drive. Then I would
restore the image of XP on the target PC. I would boot into recovery
console and copy the files form the flash drive to the target PC
(boot.ini to C:\ and hal.dll to C:\windows\system32). Most times I
could then boot the target PC normally or in safe mode.

However, with Vista I am stymied!

Any practical solution?

Chris