Can i swap hard drives from a working computer?

[Newblesse Obblige]

im planning to swap the hard drives of my my computer to another pc with along their files?

[Newblesse Obblige]

2 minutes ago, Genwyn said:

As long as it’s not a boot drive, usually goes fine. If it’s just an extra drive with a bunch of files on it.

Some programs will create a swap (cache/page file) on the extra HDD, make sure to remove that page file in the settings for the drive and expand the size of any other page files on the other drives in the old system to compensate first.

unfortunately they are boot drives as both dont have a standalone boot drive to begin with

[Newblesse Obblige]

50 minutes ago, Genwyn said:

If it’s similar enough hardware that the new computers use vs the ones the drives come from, it shouldn’t be too big of an issue. Same generation, same chipset, both 32 or 64 bit or whatever, it’ll boot but just deactivate windows and you’ll have a bunch of broken drivers to replace.

Too different and you’ll just get a blinking underscore when you try and boot it.

 

If it’s just a secondary drive you can usually access it without too much hassle.

 

Linux is a bit more forgiving if they’re Linux installs on the drives, which will usually boot without issue since it has many more stock drivers available even on an install that doesn’t use them.

both drives have windows and the file( photos, programs, documents) and these are the initial drives

Same generation, same chipset, both windows 10 64 bit cus my pc has an i3 6400 and the other one has an i5 6400 

plus the i3 is a custom built pc and the the other one is a pre built one (lenovo pc)

 

[Newblesse Obblige]

Just now, Genwyn said:

Should boot OK, worst case you’ll need the windows 10 recovery stick just to fill in the blanks for whatever Windows is missing if anything. But considering it’s nearly the same hardware, Windows would probably treat it like if you had just swapped out everything else.

really? even with different motherboards (since one is comsumer bought and one is pre built) but the same chipset? (h110 chipset)

[Newblesse Obblige]

2 minutes ago, Genwyn said:

Worst case you have to bust out a Windows 10 recovery usb if it doesn’t work, but chances are it will work fine and boot. Then it’s just a matter of installing the specific drivers for the oem motherboard or running something like driver booster just to get all the weird little background drivers changed.

if it fails, can i just swap the drives back their initial computers?