If your old laptop dies can you just buy a new one and put your old hdd into it and run your OS inta

[6644kp]

So basically if your old laptop dies on you and you buy a new one which has space for say two 2.5inch hdds can you take your old laptops hdd and put it in the new one and just run your old OS and programs on your new laptop and have effectively two Operating systems, one clean new one that came with your new laptop and your old used one with all your programs on it.

So maybe when you turn on your laptop it asks which 'profile' you want and each profile would just show one HDD and one could be Win 7 and the other be Win Xp

 

[jaybee]

Google "dual boot".
Yes you can, but generally you partition a single hard disk drive with two OS's. Also, don't expect to just lob your old HDD into a new laptop and everything just work. The OS would load probably OK, but you would have a load of drivers installed for a different laptop, so would ideally need to remove and replace with new compatible ones. Overall, it's messy and a reformat would be most people's suggestion.

 

[swinnie]

In short: no.

What I generally do for clients is take their hard drive out of their old laptop/desktop and install it in an external caddy for them to use if they're not buying a new computer immediately.