Upon simply replacing a board on a new build here with both XP and Vista alike with the exact same make and model XP had to be reinstalled completely with the activation prompts seen. A direct call to MS saw Vista reactivated.
The question asked however is how to see data saved from an old drive not cloning Windows from one size and type to another. I easily slaved a 120gb ide drive to a cd burner in order to copy and paste files and folders onto a much larger 500gb sata drive for data storage when about to build new again. The 120gb then ended up being loaned out until the owner of the other system finally gets around to installing Windows fresh on the 200gb sata drive there.