Question Adding an old laptop SDD to a new laptop ?

[390xtex]

Hello everyone,

Back in November 2021, my old laptop (Legion Y545) died from overheating , and I had gotten a new one (Legion 5i Pro) as a warranty replacement. I now have my old laptops ssd sitting by, while I have been trying to figure out if I can add it into my new laptop. My new laptop has a second M.2 slot, and the old ssd is the same (2280) as the new laptops primary ssd. If I was to add it as a secondary drive, would I be able to boot my laptop swipe my files off and then possibly just do a wipe (ideally just the boot partition)? A bunch of my old college work and docs were on there that I really need.

Would there be any issues with adding it as a secondary drive? I know directly booting from an old ssd on new hardware is risky, but this wouldn't be the primary boot. Thank you for any help, it has been stressing be out for a while. I know that there are some enclosures but between the cost of a quality ssd enclosure, the model being tricky, and some reviews saying it bricked their ssds it does have me worried. Thanks once again for any help possible.

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

You might be able to boot off of it but the general course of action is to reinstall the OS when you change platforms. For the sake of relevance to this thread, might want to parse the SKU's for both laptops. If you can't identify the SSD you have at hand, parse images of it and we'll be lad to look into. If there's data that's critical on the former laptop's SSD, might want to break out an adapter to backup any and/or all data off of it.

 

[390xtex]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

You might be able to boot off of it but the general course of action is to reinstall the OS when you change platforms. For the sake of relevance to this thread, might want to parse the SKU's for both laptops. If you can't identify the SSD you have at hand, parse images of it and we'll be lad to look into. If there's data that's critical on the former laptop's SSD, might want to break out an adapter to backup any and/or all data off of it.

Thank you for the welcome and replying so soon! Sorry for the late reply, things have been hectic lately. Sorry for the confusion but I was not planning on booting from my old ssd, just having it in the second slot of my laptop for the space and my data which accepts the 2280 form it is. I was wondering if that was possible, because I do have some data that I really do need from there. The space is not even really important to me, I would be happy with just booting from my new ssd, getting the old files off my old ssd onto there, and removing it again if it has the potential to cause problems.

The old ssd's model was a SDK 1101 512G M.2 PCIe 2280 SSD

The new laptop's ssd is SAM PM981a 512G M.2 PCIe 2280 SSD

And the new laptop has a second slot that can plug in either an hdd or an ssd, in which, like I said before, I was planning on adding that old ssd too.

Thank you for the help you have provided and any further assistance!

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

As long as you don't intend to boot your new laptop from that old SSD, you should have no problems just adding it to access it's contents or to use as extra storage space.

 

[390xtex]

As long as you don't intend to boot your new laptop from that old SSD, you should have no problems just adding it to access it's contents or to use as extra storage space.

Awesome, thank you for that. I think I'll try adding it in later today then or tomorrow. Do you think there are any risks to data if for whatever reason it becomes the primary boot, or will it just likely not post and the data would still be ok since the storage and boot are on separate partitions. Thanks again!

 

[Lafong]

If you are anxious about it:

Confirm that you can boot with ONLY the new drive connected. Yes or no.

If yes, the add the other drive so that both are connected and boot again. Post a screen shot of what you then see in Windows Disk Management.

If no, not good.

 

[390xtex]

If you are anxious about it:

Confirm that you can boot with ONLY the new drive connected. Yes or no.

If yes, the add the other drive so that both are connected and boot again. Post a screen shot of what you then see in Windows Disk Management.

If no, not good.

I'll definitely keep that in mind going forward, thank you, just a bit stressed since I worry about my data.

 

[Lafong]

just a bit stressed since I worry about my data.

Cut your worrying by 98 percent by having an ordinary backup of all "data" on some other drive entirely. Minimum of 2 copies of anything you care in the least about.