Swapping hard drives between laptops

id be inclined to reinstall the programs on the new laptop, you could swap the drives providing they are the same interface and it might work however the install of windows on that hard disk will be set up to work with the hardware on the old laptop and may not boot or be stable.

thats if the hard drive isnt water damaged along with the rest of the laptop.
 
I've swapped hard drives between two similar-aged Acer laptops without any problems, all I had to do was install the relevant drivers for the second one and everything worked fine.
 
Flash In The Pan said:
I've swapped hard drives between two similar-aged Acer laptops without any problems, all I had to do was install the relevant drivers for the second one and everything worked fine.
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that would make sense for 2 same make laptops, however swapping makes and considerable ages will hit problems like sata controllers being totally different (some controllers will need to be specified at windows install otherwise blue screens occur).
 
neil_g said:
that would make sense for 2 same make laptops, however swapping makes and considerable ages will hit problems like sata controllers being totally different (some controllers will need to be specified at windows install otherwise blue screens occur).
Click to expand...

I agree, it will depend on how old the op's laptop is and what he's planning to replace it with....
 
In most cases, if you make sure you set the sata mode on the new laptop to the same as the dead one (AHCI or IDE/Legacy mode), then it will more than likely work. (if they are both SATA).

However, newer hard drives are quicker, and you get a clean install of your OS which is always preferable. Better option would be get a USB HD caddy and just copy old files accross to the new machine.
 
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