Old laptop to a new laptop question.

[XSnPX]

Hello all, 

 

I am writing here to see if my idea is possible. 

 

I am upgrading my old laptop to a new one soon and would like to transfer ish my details to the new one.

 

Before i do this manually, I wanted to see if my thinking would work. 

 

1:  Download all the drivers for the new PC onto the old SSD m.2 on th eold laptop. 

2:  Remove old SSD M.2 from the old laptop.

3:  Add it to the new one

4:  Switch the new laptop on and install all the drivers for the new laptop onte the SSD.

5:  In Theory all should work? 

 

Let me know if this is possible to do to save time transfering all to a new SSD.

 

Thanks

 

Ben

 

[DemiGod]

Why ? Just put the m.2 into the new laptop and it should work and windows will automatically download everything.

[XSnPX]

2 minutes ago, DemiGod said:

Why ? Just put the m.2 into the new laptop and it should work and windows will automatically download everything.

I guess thats why i asked - thanks - a lot easier than i thought

[DemiGod]

23 minutes ago, XSnPX said:

I guess thats why i asked - thanks - a lot easier than i thought

There are rare cases for example if your old laptop has amd GPU and new one has nVidia, It might cause issues, so I would suggest uninstalling you drivers if they are from different brands

[XSnPX]

16 minutes ago, DemiGod said:

There are rare cases for example if your old laptop has amd GPU and new one has nVidia, It might cause issues, so I would suggest uninstalling you drivers if they are from different brands

I am going from Nvidia 2060 to Nvidia 3060

Ryzen 7 4800 to 5800 

 

I guess the only things i may need are the tools from the new laptop to be reinstalled.

I have a XMG CORE 17 and found a great deal on Lenovo Legions 5 Gen 6 

[DemiGod]

Then switch without any worries there is 0.1% chance for any issues 

[Isuck Assimov]

There might be problems with bitlocker oder secure boot if you are using these functions.

Check your settings whether that drive is bitlocker encrypted and if yes take a photo of the key or save it to a usb drive.

Also if you are using a licensed version of windows it might tell you that your version of windows is not activated at first since the hardware changed.

Try it out, worst case you can always put it back in the old laptop to make adjustments.

[XSnPX]

1 minute ago, Assimov said:

There might be problems with bitlocker oder secure boot if you are using these functions.

Check your settings whether that drive is bitlocker encrypted and if yes take a photo of the key or save it to a usb drive.

Also if you are using a licensed version of windows it might tell you that your version of windows is not activated at first since the hardware changed.

Try it out, worst case you can always put it back in the old laptop to make adjustments.

Thanks for the heads up! will do

[wseaton]

As long as you are going from intel to intel it should be good. However, both laptops need to be on AHCI mode or windows might not boot. Dell for instance has a notorious habit of installing laptops in RAID mode.

 

Also not a bad idea to download network drivers first. Can't guarantee they are built into windows.

[XSnPX]

20 minutes ago, wseaton said:

As long as you are going from intel to intel it should be good. However, both laptops need to be on AHCI mode or windows might not boot. Dell for instance has a notorious habit of installing laptops in RAID mode.

 

Also not a bad idea to download network drivers first. Can't guarantee they are built into windows.

Thanks,

I dont think my old PC is RAID but will check and going from AMD to AMD 

[Pickles von Brine]

If you are running windows 10 or windows 11 just swap the SSD from the old system to the new system. Power on the device and windows will take care of the drivers. Then, for anything lingering go into windows update and look for the option to show more. There will be more drivers listend. Select, install and move on. 

Reactive software, reactive windows with a new key. Life is good. 

 

Working in my computer repair for years and this was the easiest way to do things because Windows 10 is actually pretty good at this stuff. If there are drivers that are not found, grab them from the manufacturers site and run them. It makes life so much easier than the old way we had to do things. 
 

Windows 7 and Windows 8? Clean install. Dont even bother swapping. 

 

Long of the short of it, you have the right idea.

 

BTW sorry if this text comes off wrong. I am coming off an 18 hour day. 
 

[XSnPX]

On 8/27/2022 at 3:15 AM, Pickles von Brine said:

If you are running windows 10 or windows 11 just swap the SSD from the old system to the new system. Power on the device and windows will take care of the drivers. Then, for anything lingering go into windows update and look for the option to show more. There will be more drivers listend. Select, install and move on. 

Reactive software, reactive windows with a new key. Life is good. 

 

Working in my computer repair for years and this was the easiest way to do things because Windows 10 is actually pretty good at this stuff. If there are drivers that are not found, grab them from the manufacturers site and run them. It makes life so much easier than the old way we had to do things. 
 

Windows 7 and Windows 8? Clean install. Dont even bother swapping. 

 

Long of the short of it, you have the right idea.

 

BTW sorry if this text comes off wrong. I am coming off an 18 hour day. 
 

Thank you and very clear, I hope you recovered from yoru long shift

It is windows 10 to windows 10 - I am getting the new laptop today so will check all needed in Bitlocker first as mentioned above and do a straight swap and see how it goes for me. 

[XSnPX]

I do have another question, 

My old PC has 2x16gig DDR4 2666 ram.

The new one comes with 2x8gig DDR4 3200 ram.

 

My main use is vray and rendering.

 

does 3200 really make a difference for rendering compared to 2666?  I know if it was for gaming the 3200 would be a better choice from my research, however in rendering it seems 32gig may be better, however I do not have experience if 3200 at 16gig would be better. 

 

if anyone has any light on this would be appreciated before i also swap the RAM

 

Thanks.

[XSnPX]

THANK YOU ALL! 

 

SSD Swap went without a problem, and doing tests on both PCs before changing RAM - the new one is far far far quicker. 

It cam with 1x16gig slot - so will eventually buy another one

 

Thank you again all.

[Pickles von Brine]

15 hours ago, XSnPX said:

Thank you and very clear, I hope you recovered from yoru long shift

It is windows 10 to windows 10 - I am getting the new laptop today so will check all needed in Bitlocker first as mentioned above and do a straight swap and see how it goes for me. 

If you have bitlocker, decrpyt it first THEN swap and turn it back on. Otherwise you gotta enter the bitlocker recovery key on boot, decrypt then set it up again. Glad it all worked out for you.