[SOLVED] can i swap two working hard drives from one pc to another?

[Lil’bertz]

Im going to swap the hard drive of the family PC (the PC that every family member uses) to my pc (lenovo)
cus thay fam PC has a better CPU than my pc

Family PC: i5 6400
My PC (old lenovo PC): i3 6100

 

[CountMike]

Im going to swap the hard drive of the family PC (the PC that every family member uses) to my pc (lenovo)
cus thay fam PC has a better CPU than my pc

Family PC: i5 6400
My PC (old lenovo PC): i3 6100

I thought that you want to swap CPU only ?
Swapping disks with OS may be a problem and either windows would be invalidated or you may need to reinstall them.

 

[USAFRet]

Im going to swap the hard drive of the family PC (the PC that every family member uses) to my pc (lenovo)
cus thay fam PC has a better CPU than my pc

Family PC: i5 6400
My PC (old lenovo PC): i3 6100

These drives contain the OS?
Don't do this.

Quite likely one or both systems will simply fail to boot up in the other system.
And it might try to reconfigure itself to boot in the other system, and fail. But get just enough reconfig that it would fail to boot up back in its original system.

Tears will result.

 

[Lil’bertz]

I thought that you want to swap CPU only ?
Swapping disks with OS may be a problem and either windows would be invalidated or you may need to reinstall them.

im indecisive asf and im curious if it is viable

 

[USAFRet]

im indecisive asf and im curious if it is viable

There is no 100% either way.

3 possibilities:

1. It boots up just fine
2. It fails completely
3. It boots up, but you're chasing issues for weeks.

And in your case, any of the 3 could happen with either system.

Lastly, you will have to go through Activation pain.
Even ifthey both boot up perfectly (unlikely), they would both be Unactivated in seeing the different hardware.

Don't do this.​

 

[USAFRet]

And I'm not even going to get into the family social dynamic of why you should get the better PC over the rest of the family.

 

[Lil’bertz]

There is no 100% either way.

3 possibilities:

1. It boots up just fine
2. It fails completely
3. It boots up, but you're chasing issues for weeks.

And in your case, any of the 3 could happen with either system.

Lastly, you will have to go through Activation pain.
Even ifthey both boot up perfectly (unlikely), they would both be Unactivated in seeing the different hardware.

Don't do this.​

even both hard drives has window 10 with same license?

 

[USAFRet]

even both hard drives has window 10 with same license?

Yes.
The license will look at the motherboard (and other things).
Upon seeing a different system, it will be Unactivated.
There are ways to fix this, but that is the least of the problems you will face in this swap.

 

[USAFRet]

And what do you mean by "the same license"?

 

[Lil’bertz]

And what do you mean by "the same license"?

um sorry same windows 10 license? i maybe making up word right now

 

[USAFRet]

um sorry same windows 10 license? i maybe making up word right now

You have 2 systems running with the same Win 10 license key?
That is its own problem.

But yes...they would become Unactivated upon seeing different hardware.

 

[Lil’bertz]

You have 2 systems running with the same Win 10 license key?
That is its own problem.

But yes...they would become Unactivated upon seeing different hardware.

oh ok kewl in short its a bad idea

 

[howtobeironic]

If you still want to do this despite that the fact that these will get unactivated (if it's THAT important) you can buy Macrium Reflect Home Edition, take backups of both drives, restore to each other and use ReDeploy to configure the backups to new PC's. Note that ReDeploy isn't in the free version.

 

[Lil’bertz]

You have 2 systems running with the same Win 10 license key?
That is its own problem.

But yes...they would become Unactivated upon seeing different hardware.

wait what do you mean by Unactivated? my license will be voided?

reason for edit: typo

 

[USAFRet]

wait what do you mean by Unactivated? my license will be voided?

reason for edit: typo

Yes, mostly.