Question about cloning my HDD to a new computer.

[Upggrade]

Soon I'll be building my first PC, my plan is to clone the hard drive in my laptop onto the SSD going into the desktop, then fire it up and install the necessary drivers. Will this work? My concern is that some drivers or something from the laptop will disagree with the new hardware. I'm sure this is a stupid question but I've never done this before so here I am. Thanks in advance.

 

[elmo2006]

You can perform said work i.e. clone the laptop drive to the ssd of the desktop however I would and I'm sure others would agree that this is not the logical path to take - you will run into issues whereby the new hardware would not be detected by the OS and you will need to go looking for them.
It would be in your best interest to install the OS from scratch to the new SSD then once you have it all set up the way you like it, then perform a clone to the laptop drive and put it aside as a backup in case the desktop drive fails.

 

[Upggrade]

I was afraid you'd say that. I wanted to just clone it because with my internet connection it'll literally take days to reinstall all my games and programs. Guess I'll just do that, been meaning to clean out my hard drive anyway. Thanks.

 

[ArtPog]

What you propose could work although it's an iffy proposition. It might be worth a try since all you'll be wasting is your time if it doesn't...

I assume you'll clone the contents of your laptop's HDD to the SSD while the latter disk is connected as a USB device, right?

So then you'll internally connect the SSD in your new desktop PC (ensuring it's the SOLE drive installed, right?) and attempt to boot the system.

You may luck out and the system will boot to a desktop. If it does, you'll surely need to install whatever drivers are necessary from your new motherboard's drivers installation CD. If all goes well you should have a bootable, functioning OS with all programs & data available although it's conceivable that some programs may need to be reinstalled.

Again, this is an iffy situation - all the more so because an OEM system is involved in this "migration". While we've been reasonably successful with similar operations involving "generic" PCs, the failure rate is considerably higher when an OEM machine is involved as the source system. But since no adverse effects should affect your new system should the transfer fail, it's something for you to consider.

NOW YOU DO UNDERSTAND THAT IF THE MIGRATION IS SUCCESSFUL YOU WILL BE REQUIRED TO OBTAIN A NEW LICENSE TO ACTIVATE THE NEW SYSTEM, RIGHT?