adding hard drive

capecodbob

Solid State Member
Messages
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Hi, I am new here. The question I have is can I remove my hard drive from my old laptop with windows XP and add it to my new laptop with windows 7?
Should this be done as an external?
What problems will I encounter .
I only want to get my picture/docs from it.
The old laptop physically crashed. Screen broke off. Still boots up. I tried to use the monitor from my desktop with it but got no signal. Can,t tell if it recognized it.
It would be so simple just to install the drive from the old to the new but I don't want to mess up this new one.
The old was a Gateway 4000 notebook. The new ia a Asus K60IJ.
Thanks in advance for any help. Bob.:cool:
 
Bob, welcome to CF.

You may not be able to boot into Windows from the new laptop as the hardware specs have changed and Windows prevents users from taking a harddrive from one PC, and throwing it into another. If your Asus has the capacity, you can add as a secondary drive, but not many laptops have an additional HD slot. I haven't personally tried putting a harddrive from PC A to PC B, so don't know the full extent of what you can access when you boot up. It may just tell you that Windows is not activated and not allow you to run programs, but may still give you access to Windows Explorer for the purpose of transferring files from the drive to an external.
 
Unless the hardware is identical, you will be met with more errors and hassles than is worthwhile. It's best to just install the drive blank and reinstall the OS and move your data back over.

If you were lucky enough to even make it into Windows, a fundamental shift in PC hardware spec will cause the Windows install on that hard drive to puke on you pretty much the minute it tries to boot.
 
So, I can /should not put the HD from the old laptop inside the new laptop.
Would it be possible to use HD from the old laptop as an external HD in its own case using usb cable? Then access info from it and use it as storage ?
 
Thanx for the help.
I did get the adaptor and have set it up etc.
My laptop recognized it as a removable disk drive,and I can access what appears to be its contents.
It even auto recognizes that I have 196 photos and queries me.as to what I want to do. I chose to import them.

However I am denied access. Does not import them.
Would u know how I can get around this problem. The drive never had any passwords on it for accessing its contents when installed in the old laptop.
I did not hook up the power supply. Could this be the problem?
I read on another thread that I may fry the HD by doing that. but I'm wondering how its going to spin the disk without the power supply hooked up..
 
Before I type out a possibly useless reply, did your old install of windows need a password to log in? If so the fix is easy, just could be a lot of waiting depending on all hardware involved (your new laptop, and the old hard drive)
 
No passwrd required to use my old laptop. I also set my new laptop up that way.
I appreciate your help, Thanx, Bob.
 
Thanks OG and celegorm. I finally got to transfer all my pics and docs.
Took awhile. I did have to take ownership and allow permission to the users on the new laptop.
Got all I wanted and more.
Once that O&P thing was done was just a matter of click and drag the files in the ext drive and drop in the locations I wanted to on the new laptop. Thanks again. All for only $20 plus shipping ! Thanks again.
 
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