Possible to transfer hard drive with Windows 7 installed on it from a desktop to Laptop?

Sylver123 · 8 Jan 2011 at 05:08

Hi

I was wondering if it is fully possible to transfer a hard drive with Windows 7 installed on it from a desktop computer
into a Laptop and be able to use the Windows 7 installation on the Laptop without needing to do a fresh install?

If this is fully possible, I take it all I need to do is to boot the drive in safe mode for the first time so windows can
detect hardware changes and install the necessary drivers etc?

It take it ones that is done and correct drivers are installed, Windows 7 will detect its running on a Laptop and all the
Laptop functions in Windows 7 will be enabled automatically like the Windows Mobility Center and Laptop Power Plan etc?

Thanks for responding.

Sylver123.

rpstewart · 8 Jan 2011 at 08:55

Firstly a desktop HDD is generally about twice the physical size of a laptop one.

Secondly it's very rare for a Windows installation to be successfully moved from one machine to another. Normally you'll be left with a raft of errors which will take longer to fix than a clean install.

My advice - clean install every time.

orderoftheflame · 8 Jan 2011 at 09:49

rpstewart said:
My advice - clean install every time.

This.

EniGmA1981 · 8 Jan 2011 at 10:21

I moved my vista HDD from my Athlon 64 system into my C2D system and it just worked... it picked up all the new drivers etc and just carried on as if nothing had changed

However it was really laggy and bogged down with the old drivers and it did become pretty much unusable after a few months

Fresh install of Win7 on here now and it's a million times better

As said before - new machine = new install

theheyes · 8 Jan 2011 at 13:20

Windows Vista and 7 are much more resilient at this sort of thing. If you can get the OS to boot you're 90% of the way there. At that point I'd run sysprep /generalize and then reboot and you should be good to go.

The real issue, as mentioned, is getting a desktop disk in a laptop.

lurkio · 8 Jan 2011 at 13:55

It can be done , just sysprep the olde install while on the desktop
transfer it to laptop and boot it up , providing u dont have AHCI enabled on one but not the other , it should not tbe too much bother

Sylver123 · 8 Jan 2011 at 17:39

Well I successfully transferred my hard drive with Windows 7 installed on it from my desktop computer into my Laptop and surprisingly, everything went smoothly with no serious problems.

The Windows 7 install seems to be working great after I removed all unneeded drivers and installed the drivers for my Laptop Hardware and did a final clean up.

by the way, the hard drive in my desktop computer was SSD drive, so I had no problems fitting it into my Laptop.

Thanks guys for responding.

Sylver123.

Raumarik · 8 Jan 2011 at 18:58

Surprised nobody asked how large the HDD was, clearly a 2.5" SSD will transfer, at least physically. Most desktop hard disks are physically too large and have different connections.