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.
