[SOLVED] Changing hard drives on a new laptop

[Jack1414]

So recently my old laptop's motherboard had a short and I had to get a new laptop. Now the new laptop has a terrible hard drive and I want to swap the hard drive from my old laptop to my new laptop. What files do I need to move from my new hard drive to my old one so it can boot up the new laptop? I do not want to format my old hard drive and lose all the data so if possible I'd like to just move the needed files from new hard drive to the old hard drive.

 

[rgd1101]

no. fresh os install

 

[USAFRet]

So recently my old laptop's motherboard had a short and I had to get a new laptop. Now the new laptop has a terrible hard drive and I want to swap the hard drive from my old laptop to my new laptop. What files do I need to move from my new hard drive to my old one so it can boot up the new laptop? I do not want to format my old hard drive and lose all the data so if possible I'd like to just move the needed files from new hard drive to the old hard drive.

No, a Windows install is not modular like that.

 

[Jack1414]

No, a Windows install is not modular like that.

I don't need to reinstall windows because it's already on the old hard drive. Just the system boot software. Would I still need a fresh OS install for this case? Not looking to reinstall windows just want to use my old hard drive without having to reformat and lose all my data

 

[USAFRet]

I don't need to reinstall windows because it's already on the old hard drive. Just the system boot software. Would I still need a fresh OS install for this case? Not looking to reinstall windows just want to use my old hard drive without having to reformat and lose all my data

When moving a drive between two different systems, especially laptops...yes, you usually DO need to reinstall Windows.