Move hard drive to different computer?

I have a dead computer and another that works. Both have activated
versions of Windows 10 Home Premium. I need to move the hard drive
from the dead computer to the working computer. How can I do this
without erasing the hard drive or having to purchase a new copy of
Windows?

On 9/13/18 3:01 PM, Shoe wrote:

I have a dead computer and another that works. Both have activated
versions of Windows 10 Home Premium. I need to move the hard drive
from the dead computer to the working computer. How can I do this
without erasing the hard drive or having to purchase a new copy of
Windows?

I just moved my hard drive with Win10Pro (free upgrade from retail
Win7Pro) to another machine, and it still shows as Activated.

BUT: the new motherboard is the same make and a similar (only slightly
newer) model as the old one. and the CPU is the same model (but
obviously a different Serial Number).

To take care of possibly different driver requirements, I used Macrium
Reflect (paid Home edition) to create an image of the Windows partition
using the old hardware -- but it's now too late for you to do this, as
your old machine is dead -- then used their "ReDepoly to new hardware"
feature after restoring the image to the same partition in the new
machine; I'm not sure exactly what magic that performs -- maybe
(guessing here) just figures that the restored image does not include
drivers for all the new hardware, disables the non-matching ones, and
lets the thing look for the new drivers on line as it boots up.

In your situation, doing a "Repair," if necessary, after booting up in
the new machine might take care of any driver mismatches.

Perce

On 13/09/2018 20:01, Shoe wrote:
I have a dead computer and another that works. Both have activated
versions of Windows 10 Home Premium. I need to move the hard drive
from the dead computer to the working computer. How can I do this
without erasing the hard drive or having to purchase a new copy of
Windows?

If the dead computer had OEM Windows then you can't (according to the
general principles). However, you can always try to insert the HD on to
your new machine and see whether or not it activates automatically. If
it doesn't, then you might get an option to phone Microsoft and ask them
to activate it manually. You will have to tell them that the
Motherboard on the old machine died so you decided to move the HD on to
a new machine which had a good Motherboard. They might activate this or
they might tell you you are a known thief. Either way you have nothing
to lose because a name like Shoe is always frowned upon. In the Middle
East they throw shoes at leaders they don't like. George Bush had this
wonderful ignominious experience in Iraq.

So you are now using Windows 10 so you must be an addict of it. Please
pass this message to your friends and relatives so that they too can use
Windows 10.


--
With over 950 million devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

"Shoe" wrote in message
...
I have a dead computer and another that works. Both have activated
versions of Windows 10 Home Premium. I need to move the hard drive
from the dead computer to the working computer. How can I do this
without erasing the hard drive or having to purchase a new copy of
Windows?

Like Perce, I have also done this, moving Win10Pro from one PC to another
(actually, replacing the MB and CPU in the current PC because I like the
case). They were from two different manufacturers, but both MB's were AMD
processors with AMD chipsets. The new MB has a newer CPU and chipset than
the old one.

I attached the old HDD to the new MB, booted up, and waited for the error
messages to start. Surprisingly, it took just a little bit longer to boot,
but came right up into Windows with no visible errors. There were a few
errors/warnings in the event log, but most pertained to drivers. I had gone
to the MB maker's website earlier and DL'd any new drivers, installed them,
rebooted, and everything worked just fine. It's still working and legally
activated after using it for about 4-5 months so far :-)

I agree that you should have made a backup/image/clone of your old drive
before attempting it, but if you have an external USB drive dock, you could
still create an image from the old drive to your current working PC. I use
Acronis True Image, but Macrium and some of the others would allow you to do
the same thing. That way, if something goes horribly wrong, you can always
restore that image to the old HDD and start over. With ATI, the program
doesn't even need to be installed; boot from the CD and perform all
operations from there :-) Actually pretty simple to do.

I think the big thing is that the new PC has the same CPU and chipset
manufacturer as the old PC. I would think that going from AMD to Intel or
vice-versa would probably not work as easily.
Good luck!!
--

SC Tom

In article , SC Tom writes
I think the big thing is that the new PC has the same CPU and chipset
manufacturer as the old PC. I would think that going from AMD to Intel or
vice-versa would probably not work as easily.
Good luck!!

I've only ever had 1 Intel CPU in the many PC's I've had since the early
1980's but have swapped HD's to new builds using differing MB's and
operating systems, never had a problem, windows xx just downloaded what
was needed and updated, maybe I've been lucky.

Mike

--
Michael Swift We do not regard Englishmen as foreigners.
Kirkheaton We look on them only as rather mad Norwegians.
Yorkshire Halvard Lange

On 14/09/2018 17:00, Mike Swift wrote:

I've only ever had 1 Intel CPU in the many PC's I've had since the
early 1980's but have swapped HD's to new builds using differing MB's
and operating systems, never had a problem, windows xx just downloaded
what was needed and updated, maybe I've been lucky.



No you didn't try with Windows XP, Vista, Windows7 or Windows 8/8.1.
They all required activation and always required phoning Microsoft to
activate. Stop lying to the public and giving false information. You
look completely stupid.

Early 1980s there wasn't anything like activation. Are you
hallucinating again? In fact I doubt if people were using computers in
their houses. At work people were using punched cards and mega
computers occupying a room or two for simple tasks but ordinary people
were even struggling to use a typewriter and the term computer was never
in their vocabulary.


--
With over 950 million devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

wrote in message
...
On Fri, 14 Sep 2018 21:08:16 +0100, ? Good Guy ?
wrote:

On 14/09/2018 17:00, Mike Swift wrote:

I've only ever had 1 Intel CPU in the many PC's I've had since the
early 1980's but have swapped HD's to new builds using differing MB's
and operating systems, never had a problem, windows xx just downloaded
what was needed and updated, maybe I've been lucky.



No you didn't try with Windows XP, Vista, Windows7 or Windows 8/8.1.
They all required activation and always required phoning Microsoft to
activate. Stop lying to the public and giving false information. You
look completely stupid.

Early 1980s there wasn't anything like activation. Are you
hallucinating again? In fact I doubt if people were using computers in
their houses. At work people were using punched cards and mega
computers occupying a room or two for simple tasks but ordinary people
were even struggling to use a typewriter and the term computer was never
in their vocabulary.

I had a Radio Shack TRS 80 Level II computer in the late '70s. I used
audio tape on a cassette player for storing data. It was a real pain
to run a program tape for 10 minutes and have it bomb on you.

I remember some time later getting an AST 286 with a 20 MB hard drive
in it. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

Similar experience- I bought a TI 99/4A back in the early '80s and used the
audio cassette storage method. Could be a real pain at times; I couldn't
afford the PEB (Peripheral Expansion Box)- Kmart was blowing out the TI for
$50, but the PEB was still ~$500.

About a year later, my brother gave me his old Franklin Ace 1000 Apple
II-compatible PC with a DUAL 5.25" floppy drive. OMG, what a difference :-)
One disk had Apple Basic on it, and the other slot was used for
loading/saving programs. I learned basic programming on that bad boy, even
wrote a nice little solitaire card game :-) It was the last Apple anything I
ever owned, though. My job went to MS-based PC's and I followed that.
http://www.vintage-computer.com/franklin.shtml
--

SC Tom

In article ,
writes
I had a Radio Shack TRS 80 Level II computer in the late '70s. I used audio
tape on a cassette player for storing data. It was a real pain to run a
program tape for 10 minutes and have it bomb on you.

I had the Video Genie 2, a clone of the TRS80 but in a smart looking
case plus a built in tape recorder / player.

It was even worse when you had spent hours carefully typing in a program
from a magazine and your fridge started up and the spike corrupted the
code, happened to me several times before I sussed to turn off the
fridge before saving, happy days.

The computer is still in a box in the loft.

I wanted to upgrade to a BBC but didn't have the cash so I got a reduced
price display Amstrad CPC 6128, pure luxury, decent graphics and some
good games, I eventually got a machine code compiler, word processor and
spread sheet ROM, a very good machine for its time.

Mike

--
Michael Swift We do not regard Englishmen as foreigners.
Kirkheaton We look on them only as rather mad Norwegians.
Yorkshire Halvard Lange

On Fri, 14 Sep 2018 21:08:16 +0100, ? Good Guy ?
wrote:

On 14/09/2018 17:00, Mike Swift wrote:

I've only ever had 1 Intel CPU in the many PC's I've had since the
early 1980's but have swapped HD's to new builds using differing MB's
and operating systems, never had a problem, windows xx just downloaded
what was needed and updated, maybe I've been lucky.



No you didn't try with Windows XP, Vista, Windows7 or Windows 8/8.1.
They all required activation and always required phoning Microsoft to
activate. Stop lying to the public and giving false information. You
look completely stupid.

Early 1980s there wasn't anything like activation. Are you
hallucinating again? In fact I doubt if people were using computers in
their houses. At work people were using punched cards and mega
computers occupying a room or two for simple tasks but ordinary people
were even struggling to use a typewriter and the term computer was never
in their vocabulary.

Never heard of TRS-80, Commodore 64, etc?
I had an IBM System 34 from late 70s, 130 MB hard disk back then.

On 9/13/2018 3:01 PM, Shoe wrote:
I have a dead computer and another that works. Both have activated
versions of Windows 10 Home Premium. I need to move the hard drive
from the dead computer to the working computer. How can I do this
without erasing the hard drive or having to purchase a new copy of
Windows?

You didn't mention whether they were desktop or laptop PC's. If laptops,
then chances are likely that there is only room enough to put one drive
inside, and so you'd need to purchase an external USB drive enclosure
that you can put the dead computer's hard drive into. You would then
attach the enclosure to one of the USB ports of your laptop.

If you have a desktop, then chances are likely that you have more than
one HDD port available, and all you'd need to do is attach the dead
computer's HDD to one of the free HDD SATA ports on your motherboard. No
need to buy an enclosure.

Neither method needs you to erase your existing hard drive in the
working computer.

Yousuf Khan

In article , bbbl67
@spammenot.yahoo.com says...

On 9/13/2018 3:01 PM, Shoe wrote:
I have a dead computer and another that works. Both have activated
versions of Windows 10 Home Premium. I need to move the hard drive
from the dead computer to the working computer. How can I do this
without erasing the hard drive or having to purchase a new copy of
Windows?

You didn't mention whether they were desktop or laptop PC's. If laptops,
then chances are likely that there is only room enough to put one drive
inside, and so you'd need to purchase an external USB drive enclosure
that you can put the dead computer's hard drive into. You would then
attach the enclosure to one of the USB ports of your laptop.

If you have a desktop, then chances are likely that you have more than
one HDD port available, and all you'd need to do is attach the dead
computer's HDD to one of the free HDD SATA ports on your motherboard. No
need to buy an enclosure.

Neither method needs you to erase your existing hard drive in the
working computer.

Yousuf Khan

Add that you will likely have to enable the proper Sata port in your
BIOS if you attach it internally on a desktop.

On 10/11/2018 6:38 PM, pjp wrote:
Add that you will likely have to enable the proper Sata port in your
BIOS if you attach it internally on a desktop.

All SATA ports are activated, if you have just one already on it.

In article , bbbl67
@spammenot.yahoo.com says...

On 10/11/2018 6:38 PM, pjp wrote:
Add that you will likely have to enable the proper Sata port in your
BIOS if you attach it internally on a desktop.

All SATA ports are activated, if you have just one already on it.

I have at least two pcs that every SATA port in it has an
Enabled/Disabled setting in the BIOS. You get an error message if it's
Enabled and there's nothing attached to the port and you get nada if
it's disabled and something is attached to the port. Least that's my
experience to date?

pjp wrote:
In article , bbbl67
@spammenot.yahoo.com says...
On 10/11/2018 6:38 PM, pjp wrote:
Add that you will likely have to enable the proper Sata port in your
BIOS if you attach it internally on a desktop.
All SATA ports are activated, if you have just one already on it.

I have at least two pcs that every SATA port in it has an
Enabled/Disabled setting in the BIOS. You get an error message if it's
Enabled and there's nothing attached to the port and you get nada if
it's disabled and something is attached to the port. Least that's my
experience to date?

I've always left all of mine enabled (for convenience)
and no problemo here. Unpopulated ports resolve on their
own.

Bootup can be *faster*, if you disable all the ports
with no drive on them. But that's a lot of work to arrange,
and any boot time saved, is lost while entering the BIOS
and puttering around. I change disk configurations enough,
that would never be a sensible proposition.

And the enable/disable is *not* sufficient protection to
protect the contents of drives. When you disable a port,
Linux will turn them back on when the Linux drivers
receive handoff. Those controls are not trap-door controls
where hardware write-once prevents changing the bit
setting later. Those appear to be open season.

The rule remains with regard to protecting disks during
OS installations. The only safe option is unplugging
desktop drives you don't want "damaged". Only the target
OS installation drive should be connected, as well as
the optical drive with the install media in it.

Paul

Shoe schreef op 13-09-2018
in :
I have a dead computer and another that works. Both have activated
versions of Windows 10 Home Premium. I need to move the hard drive
from the dead computer to the working computer.

You mean you want to collect your data from the dead PC drive?



--
MdW.