Question Questions about transferring notebook drives

[MatthewJamess]

I’m giving a family member my old notebook, to replace hers, and I have 2 questions:
- First, I want to do a full format on my machine’s m.2 ssd. Can I do it on the notebook itself? Or should I transfer it to my PC in order to run a format on disk manager? Do I risk anything with my notebook’s BIOS by doing so?
- Second, her old machine has a 2.5 HDD with all her info on it that she needs to keep, and my notebook has an empty 2.5 bay in it. Can I simply transfer the drive from one computer to the other? Is there any potential problems with the HDD having a copy of windows installed (her OS)?
Any help will be appreciated!

 

[NedSmelly]

A third option would be to create a new admin user account for your family member on your laptop and transfer her files and applications manually - then delete your files and user account (or keep it for IT support). Saves a lot of hassle and possible hardware damage in transit.

(EDIT: this also keeps her old computer functional with all her data, just in case something goes wrong with the migration. Some software licence activations might also be broken with a drive swap.)

As for the spare 2.5 bay, if her HDD is just data and not boot then it should work. [EDIT: as long as it’s not encrypted.] Putting it in an external USB enclosure is another option. A bootable drive might confuse your laptop BIOS and require you to fiddle with its boot settings.

 

[USAFRet]

I’m giving a family member my old notebook, to replace hers, and I have 2 questions:
- First, I want to do a full format on my machine’s m.2 ssd. Can I do it on the notebook itself? Or should I transfer it to my PC in order to run a format on disk manager? Do I risk anything with my notebook’s BIOS by doing so?
- Second, her old machine has a 2.5 HDD with all her info on it that she needs to keep, and my notebook has an empty 2.5 bay in it. Can I simply transfer the drive from one computer to the other? Is there any potential problems with the HDD having a copy of windows installed (her OS)?
Any help will be appreciated!

First - Why the format? You can, and should, just do a clean Windows reinstall. (see below)

Second - As long as you're not trying to boot from it. But...you WILL run into issues accessing the data that may live in the default Windows Libraries. They are linked to the original user account.

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[MatthewJamess]

First - Why the format? You can, and should, just do a clean Windows reinstall. (see below)

Second - As long as you're not trying to boot from it. But...you WILL run into issues accessing the data that may live in the default Windows Libraries. They are linked to the original user account.

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

Thanks for your reply!!
I wanted to format the drive just to make sure no residual files were left in there, as it was my college computer and is full of large design files that serve no purpose, but you are right, doing a fresh install will let me clean the drive just as fine.
On the other hand, what are some precautions I should take before transfering the drive? or are there any alternative solutions you could propose? I'm talking hundreds of gigs in files that won't even fit on the SSD I have.

 

[MatthewJamess]

A third option would be to create a new admin user account for your family member on your laptop and transfer her files and applications manually - then delete your files and user account (or keep it for IT support). Saves a lot of hassle and possible hardware damage in transit.

(EDIT: this also keeps her old computer functional with all her data, just in case something goes wrong with the migration. Some software licence activations might also be broken with a drive swap.)

As for the spare 2.5 bay, if her HDD is just data and not boot then it should work. [EDIT: as long as it’s not encrypted.] Putting it in an external USB enclosure is another option. A bootable drive might confuse your laptop BIOS and require you to fiddle with its boot settings.

Thans for replying!
I have enough knowledge to get into boot priority on the BIOS, would that be enough to prevent any failures on the old drive? My problem with transfering it to the SSd is that the amoing on data she has exceeds my drive's capacity.
I will look into getting an external enclosure just in case as well, but the idea was for her to just have the laptop to carry arround.

 

[USAFRet]

On the other hand, what are some precautions I should take before transfering the drive? or are there any alternative solutions you could propose? I'm talking hundreds of gigs in files that won't even fit on the SSD I have.

Some other drive, with enough free space to hold that data.

 

[USAFRet]

And during operations like this, no matter how you do this...you really really really want a second/third copy of all personal data involved.