Question How do I migrate Windows from a Legacy-only laptop to a UEFI-only laptop?

[that1dad]

Hey all! Long time reader, first time questioner. My aunt had an ancient Toshiba laptop running on AMD E300 and wanted to finally upgrade, so she asked me (the family techie) what to get. I advised a refurb Dell Latitude 5500 to fit her budget, and she wanted to bring all her files and programs over (lots of product keys on there). I am now running into issues with cloning (not a big surprise considering the hardware differences) but even creating a .iso seems unlikely because you have to match MBR to MBR, which won't work on the Latitude. Did I just back myself into a corner? What are my options?

 

[USAFRet]

You don't/can't do that.

You'll need to go through the hassle of discovering all the needed applications, and their license keys or whatever.

And cloning between any two systems is problematic and likely to fail. Not just "old legacy to UEFI".

 

[ohio_buckeye]

If it’s for personal use, there used to be a program called belarc advisor that you could use to scan your system to find product keys etc.

 

[USAFRet]

If it’s for personal use, there used to be a program called belarc advisor that you could use to scan your system to find product keys etc.

It still exists.
https://www.belarc.com/products/belarc-advisor

 

[that1dad]

Thank you so much for the info! I have never heard of that software and I don't know that I would have thought to look for it.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Even if you get the product keys you’ll still need to find the installers and hope any activation servers are active.