moving a Vista hard drive

[hinesward]

I got a new laptop for a user. The old one is fine. He just wanted a smaller one.

He has Windows Vista on his old laptop. I would like to move his old hard drive to his new laptop.

With any version of Microsoft Windows up to 2000, this generally was not a problem, with the exception of various driver issues.

Now, Microsoft has sabotaged its OS to make this more difficult. This sabotage started with Windows XP. Both laptops are licensed to run Vista.

Will I have any problems if I simply move the drive? What kind of precautions should I take? Is there anything I need to?

 

[vacunita]

Will I have any problems if I simply move the drive? What kind of precautions should I take? Is there anything I need to?

Unless the hardware is exactly the same, and I mean down to the Part and serial numbers on each piece of hardware. Not only will Vista complain if it even boots at all, but you'll be in EULA infringement.

Laptops in 99% of the cases come with an OEM type license for the Operating System. This means that The operating System can only be run in that machine. This is because the license is tied to the hardware and the vendor.

Movie it and Vista will not only not recognize any of the hardware, it will tell you its a different machine and will certainly require re-activation.


Would it not be simpler to just copy over his data? You can use the Windows Easy Transfer app to do this pretty much painlessly.

Its definitely a better alternative to wrestling with Windows to get it working normally again. not only will you need uninstall all hardware and then reinstall all new drivers for the hardware in machine number 2, but you'll have to wrestle with Windows Phone support to re-activate the machine if they don't deny it. Because what you are doing is essentially not allowed.

Now add to that that since the new machine is a smaller one, the drive may a different type of drive, and the space may not accommodate the drive from the old machine.







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Phil AKA Vacunita
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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[hinesward]

Vacunita,

I will assume that you don't have a solution to the problem.

 

[vacunita]

Would it not be simpler to just copy over his data? You can use the Windows Easy Transfer app to do this pretty much painlessly.

A Solution to what, I never said you could not do it, jut that it will be extremely difficult.

I see no real point in it, if you can transfer the data more easily and painlessly.
Does he really need the entire operating system?

Exactly what do you want to gain from transferring the Drive, other than to have the user's data accessible?









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Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[hinesward]

Windows Easy Transfer was easy. It worked quite well and did the trick.