Comments for Can I move my system drive to another computer and have it work?

Comment from donjoe on 2010-02-05

2010-02-05T13:12:14Z

I did this once with a Windows98 - moved it from a Pentium II system to a Pentium III system. The hardware was definitely not identical, but it might not have been all that different either. All I know is it worked brilliantly - it sat there for 10 minutes re-detecting everything the first time I started it and then it worked just as well as it always had (taking into account the general quality of Win98).

I expect at least the same behaviour from the much superior WinXP, so I will definitely try the same move tomorrow - this time from an AMD Duron system to a platform with an Intel (Single-)Core-Celeron. Worst-case, I will still have to do a complete reinstall, but if there's a remote possibility of not having to do that, I'll take it.

]]>

A comment on: Can I move my system drive to another computer and have it work?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.

Comment from Paul Yarnall on 2010-01-08

2010-01-08T13:16:45Z

Leo... thanks for the article. I want to report that I moved my XP Pro boot drive from a 4 year old single cpu board to a new board (different mfg) with a multi core processor and newer DDR memory. My initial experience was that it was not going to work as the FIRST repair alternative resulted in immediate crash. I finally resigned myself to a complete install along with all my apps but during the install process via the CD after moving to the next and final choice screen for install I noticed that "repair" was again an option. I chose this and it worked. Took quite a while, like a normal install, and required reactivation, but I have my old system now running on the new equipment. Had to load the new LAN and chipset drivers to get back on line, but it looks like I am home free and saved HOURS!

]]>

A comment on: Can I move my system drive to another computer and have it work?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.

Comment from Pem on 2009-12-14

2009-12-14T08:02:28Z

What about if I have the exact same hardware? Literally two copies of the same everything, except the boot drive?

However, what if I want to move this boot drive back-and-forth... 2 or 3 times a day, between my office computer and home computer. Being the boot drive for both copies of the computer hardware.

Is the activation going to screw with me?

Don't know. It certainly wasn't designed to handle that situation. Know that some things will STILL be different - like the unique ID of every network adapter. It could work, but the only way to know for sure is to try.

14-Dec-2009

]]>

A comment on: Can I move my system drive to another computer and have it work?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.

Comment from ROBERT DEVAUN on 2009-05-30

2009-05-30T16:14:43Z

I HAVE A COMPUTER THAT HAS A SYSTEM 32 PROBLEM,WHAT ID LIKE TO KNOW IS,CAN I COPY THE SYSTEM 32 DRIVERS FROM ONE COMPUTER TO ANOTHER

]]>

A comment on: Can I move my system drive to another computer and have it work?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.

Comment from Sharron Field on 2008-11-22

2008-11-23T03:07:57Z

Just this week I tried moving a hard drive direct from a box with a 64-bit Asus board with a VIA chipset and 64-bit AMD Athlon 64 2.2GHz single-core CPU and 2GB DDR2 RAM to a box with 64-bit Asrock board with an nVidia chipset and 32-bit AMD Sempron 1.8GHz single-core CPU and 1GB DDR RAM. (Both of which I built myself.)

On powerup everything booted but it was so slow (1/2 hour to fully boot.) and clearly didn't like its new situation. I spent quite a few hours trying to optimise it, installing the stsyem board's nVidia drivers etc, but with little success. (Maybe it had something to do with the big difference in CPU architecture>) I ended up formatting the drive and installing Windows XP again. (+ all the drivers from the motherboard CD, then updating them.) It worked like a dream from then on.

This is the first time that I've actually tried swapping a loaded disk as primary disk between 2 boxes. I'd recommend, from my limited experience of this operation, taking Leo's stance and reinstalling Windows in such a case. Had I done so in the first place it would have saved me hours of hassle. (Unless you're moving the drive to an identically-built box perhaps?) I've heard elsewhere that a maintenance reinstall might do the trick; but I've yet to try that in this situation.

]]>

A comment on: Can I move my system drive to another computer and have it work?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.

Comment from Yohan Perera on 2008-10-22

2008-10-22T16:27:59Z

Hi, This guy has a solution,

http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives/2008/07/09/move-windows-xp-hard-drive-or-change-motherboard-without-getting-blue-screen-of-death/

]]>

A comment on: Can I move my system drive to another computer and have it work?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.

Comment from Michael Smith on 2008-07-31

2008-07-31T20:56:48Z

Although I have not experienced Vista on the copy yet, I can vouch for Windows XP. Basically when you install Windows the first time, it chooses a HAL type (hardware abstraction layer). If you have a single processor with only one core, it chooses the 1 HAL. If you have a dual core or more than one processor it will choose the 2^n HAL. The big difference is the 1 HAL can only ever interact with one processor machines. So if you take a machine that had been running the 1 HAL and put it in a dual core machine, you will blue screen every time, even booting to safe-mode, etc. This can be resolved by booting the windows disk and repairing your Windows installation (windows disk will choose the 2^n HAL and you should come up ok.)

For the 2^n HAL's, they can go backwards, since anyone with any math skills know that 2^0 = 1. It will issue out the instructions in a correct manner to the processor, although you do lose a bit of computing power from it having to make that computation on every instruction, only to issue it to a single processor (not a noticeable slowdown).

Once you are up and running with a working HAL and windows build, its just a matter of updating all your device drivers. Hopefully you have hardware from a big company, as they tend to have very friendly UI's for getting to various hardware drivers.

Have fun!

]]>

A comment on: Can I move my system drive to another computer and have it work?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.

Comment from robin on 2008-07-26

2008-07-26T18:51:18Z

Hi Leo
This article has really confused me. Are you saying that the image I made of my Windows XP operating system with Acronis True Image, would not be able to be installed on a new computer or even a new hard disk?

A backup is, in my opinion, not a reliable way to move an entire system to a new machine. Honestly, the best approach to that is to build out a new machine from scratch, reinstall applications from scratch, and move your data.

A backup serves two different, yet extremely important functions:

• Restoring to the original machine: an image that can be restored to your existing machine should it ever crash and simply be repaired. (Probably more common than failures requiring complete machine replacement)
• Moving data to a new machine: an image of your old machine that can be installed on a different hard drive on an different new machine - not as the boot drive for that new machine but as another drive from which you can then access all the old data from your old machine

While, as the article outlines, it may occasionally be possible to move a hard drive, or an image of a hard drive, to completely different hardware and have it boot and work, it's not at all something I would rely on.

Hope that helps clarify.

-Leo

]]>

A comment on: Can I move my system drive to another computer and have it work?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.

Comment from Rick Loggins on 2008-07-25

2008-07-26T01:15:43Z

How 'bout this: I have my system on a partitioned drive (partition=30 gigs) which I use [almost] exclusively for the system (Windows, System/32, 'Documents and settings' and 'Program Files' etc.) I don't want to move to another machine; I want to move my 'C' drive to another hard drive/bigger partition and I want to keep ‘everything’ as it is- meaning the Windows configuration and the installed software. Of course I also want to accomplish this in 2 1/2 minutes. What do you think would be the best way to go about achieving that goal? BTW- My OS is XP Pro.

I don't know about the 2.5 minute part, but there are partition managers out there that will do what you ask by resizing partitions while keeping the data intact. Acronis Disk Manager and Partition Magic are two that come to mind. I know there are others.

-Leo

]]>

A comment on: Can I move my system drive to another computer and have it work?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.

Comment from Terry Hollett on 2008-07-23

2008-07-23T23:14:42Z

I had to remove a guys hard drive from his old computer and put it in another machine after his power supply burned out. It would not boot up but a simple repair install and I was able to save the files he wanted saved on the hard drive. And got is second machine up and running.

http://www.geocities.com/terryhollett2003/

]]>

A comment on: Can I move my system drive to another computer and have it work?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.

Comment from Gigi Duru on 2008-07-22

2008-07-22T19:56:54Z

1 - Vista cannot be copied to another hd, especially an external one, and work. Actually i seriously doubt you could even install it there.
2 - Wherever you would put it, the security is the same.

]]>

A comment on: Can I move my system drive to another computer and have it work?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.

Comment from Gail on 2008-07-22

2008-07-22T16:15:00Z

Hello, I'd like to ask a question relating, kind of, to using other hard drives.
I have a removeable hard drive which I'd like to make secure. At the moment I just plug it in and use it to sore data, photographs. Could I make it secure by copying windows vista from my laptop to the hard drive, errrrrrr???????

Hoping to get a response, Gail

]]>

A comment on: Can I move my system drive to another computer and have it work?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.

Comment from peter on 2008-07-19

2008-07-19T20:12:22Z

As you said Leo if the new machine is dramatically different then it will not work , for me actually i prefer to run every machine with it's custom system , this way is more successful and fast.

Thanks Leo..
http://www.fosdir.com

]]>

A comment on: Can I move my system drive to another computer and have it work?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.

Comment from Ken B on 2008-07-19

2008-07-19T19:36:01Z

I've replaced motherboards in Windows computers with a completely different make/model/type of motherboard than the old one. I've yet to have the system fail to boot to Windows with the new motherboard.

That said, it often takes numerous reboots as Windows goes through numerous "detecting new hardware" phases, and installing new drivers which require a reboot.

With that in mind, I always copy the contents of the Windows install disk into a subdirectory on the hard drive, prior to changing out the system. Otherwise, you may end up in a Catch-22 scenario where it needs to load the CD device driver from the CD. (BTDT)

]]>

A comment on: Can I move my system drive to another computer and have it work?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
Leo's Answers Newsletter - Ask Leo! in your inbox every week.