Old HDD

[ismilehossain]

Is it possible to move an older hard drive from an older laptop (Windows Vista) to a newer laptop (HP 14bs017 na) and boot off of it? I had some important data from the older drive and want to move the data.

Thanks.

[Needfuldoer]

The newer PC can read the drive, but booting the copy of Windows on it is a crapshoot. (Especially an OS as old as Vista.)

 

Copying the files off the old laptop while it's booted with its old drive is best. (Either to a flash drive or over the network to the new laptop.) If the old laptop doesn't work anymore, get a SATA to USB adapter and treat it like an external. If you get an external enclosure (instead of just a plug-on adapter), you can use the drive for backups.

[ismilehossain]

6 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

The newer PC can read the drive, but booting the copy of Windows on it is a crapshoot. (Especially an OS as old as Vista.)

 

Copying the files off the old laptop while it's booted with its old drive is best. (Either to a flash drive or over the network to the new laptop.) If the old laptop doesn't work anymore, get a SATA to USB adapter and treat it like an external. If you get an external enclosure (instead of just a plug-on adapter), you can use the drive for backups.

The old laptop doesn't work anymore because of the gpu. I still have the hdd. Windows doesn't have to work fully. Just enough so that I could boot into it and move all the data. All the drivers don't have to work. Just enough to be usable.

[Needfuldoer]

But that's the thing, it might not boot to a desktop properly.

 

You can certainly try, and it shouldn't damage any of your data, but for your use case I'd put the old drive in an external enclosure.

[ismilehossain]

2 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

But that's the thing, it might not boot to a desktop properly.

 

You can certainly try, and it shouldn't damage any of your data, but for your use case I'd put the old drive in an external enclosure.

Right, I might try booting it 1st and if that doesn't work, I'll get one of those usb to sata adapters.

Thanks very much.