[SOLVED] Can I remove my HDD (not the OS drive) and add it to new laptop?

[AugustusF]

Hey there! Recently updated from Lenovo Ideapad 3 Gaming (1650, 256 gb ssd and 1tb hdd) to Asus Tuf Gaming f15 (3060) which came with 512gb ssd. Wondered if I could take out the hdd from ideapad and fix it in new one.

 

[Lafong]

ASUS TUF Gaming F15 - Tech Specs｜Laptops For Gaming｜ASUS Global

Detailed specification of ASUS TUF Gaming F15 Tech Specsï¼Operating System:Windows 10 Home - ASUS recommends Windows 11 Pro for business|WITHOUT OS|Windows 10 Pro - ASUS recommends Windows 11 Pro for business|Device comes with Windows 10 and a free Windows 11 upgrade or may be preloaded with...

www.asus.com

Spec sheet above implies the new laptop has a mounting point for a spinning drive in addition to an NVMe.

So, I'd guess so if the HDD is ordinary industry laptop standard.

 

[USAFRet]

Hey there! Recently updated from Lenovo Ideapad 3 Gaming (1650, 256 gb ssd and 1tb hdd) to Asus Tuf Gaming f15 (3060) which came with 512gb ssd. Wondered if I could take out the hdd from ideapad and fix it in new one.

Not the OS drive?

Assuming the new system has a mount place and proper connection,. yes.
Don't expect any applications that may live on it to work.

 

[AugustusF]

Not the OS drive?

Assuming the new system has a mount place and proper connection,. yes.
Don't expect any applications that may live on it to work.

Yeah it does have a place to mount. Don't really know what you mean by "proper connection". I'm very new to this and this is my first time ever doing this. Should the hdd be of same specs ( if there's any...?) or any other criteria for it to match perfectly?

and I don't want any of my older files to carry forward. I'm just looking for extra space.

One newbie question - My current laptop shows -
Windows-SSD (C:\) - 237 gb ; Data (D:\) - 431 gb ; New Volume (E:\) - 249 gb ; New Volume (F:\) - 249 GB.

is there a way to strip out the new volume E: and F: alone? or is it just a partition and if I were to take it off , the entire D: , E: and F: would be carried to the new lap?

 

[USAFRet]

"and I don't want any of my older files to carry forward. I'm just looking for extra space. "

Then you put it in the new laptop, and DELETE all existing partitions.
Reformat as one single space.

 

[Lafong]

One newbie question - My current laptop shows -
Windows-SSD (C:\) - 237 gb ; Data (D:\) - 431 gb ; New Volume (E:\) - 249 gb ; New Volume (F:\) - 249 GB.

is there a way to strip out the new volume E: and F: alone? or is it just a partition and if I were to take it off , the entire D: , E: and F: would be carried to the new lap?

C is likely a separate 256 gb SSD.

D, E, and F appear to be 3 different partitions on a spinning 1 TB drive.

I'd assume that spinning 1 TB drive can simply be attached to the correct spot in the new laptop. When you reboot, those 3 partitions can be deleted within Disk Management, giving you one big unallocated space of about 930 GB.

You could then turn that unallocated space into a single partition, probably with a D drive letter.

Without more info, there would be no over-riding reason to make multiple partitions from that 930 gb unallocated. I'd just leave it all in one big partition unless you have some unusual requirements.

You could do likely all of that while the spinning 1 TB drive is still attached to the old laptop.....before moving it over to the new laptop.