Swapping out storage drives from one laptop to another

[richardklein68]

I recently bought a new laptop and immediately removed the HDD and installed the SSD from my old laptop. Now some updates are not installing and my keyboard isn't working properly there are probably other issues that I have not noticed. Is this because I changed the storage? Would I have to change my boot drive to my M.2 SSD? Is there any way to do that and still keep and use all of the programs on my main drive such as MS office, Solidworks and others?

Thanks

 

[jojesa]

When you installed the SSD from the old laptop to new laptop , did you perform a clean Windows installation ?
Which laptop models?

 

[richardklein68]

No, just straight swap

 

[jojesa]

No, just straight swap

That's is going to bring you even more issues down the line.

I have tried that but some steps are required for it to work.
Before connecting the drive to the new device you have to go to the Device manager and uninstall all hardware pertinent to the old device.
Also remove any apps or driver software from Programs connected to the hardware.
After that you could power power off, remove the drive and connect the drive to the new system.

You might need to perform a clean installation or clone the HDD to the SSD.

 

[richardklein68]

Could I transfer the software and data that I want onto the original HDD and then just clone the HDD onto my SSD? Or could I use the M.2 somehow to simplify everything?

Thank you for helping

 

[USAFRet]

Could I transfer the software and data that I want onto the original HDD and then just clone the HDD onto my SSD? Or could I use the M.2 somehow to simplify everything?

Thank you for helping

That is a mishmash of procedures that absolutely will not work.

 

[richardklein68]

So how do I keep all my data, software and games on my current drive, while importing all of the drivers, software and the Windows 10 from the original drive?

 

[DSzymborski]

So how do I keep all my data, software and games on my current drive, while importing all of the drivers, software and the Windows 10 from the original drive?

Outside of Steam games, which generally are cooperative about being dragged to a new hard drive after Steam is properly installed, you don't do this. Operating system installs are not intended to be modular parts in this manner. You're going to need to properly do a fresh install on the hard drive, reinstall your games and programs, and restore your data from your backup.

 

[jojesa]

Could I transfer the software and data that I want onto the original HDD and then just clone the HDD onto my SSD? Or could I use the M.2 somehow to simplify everything?

Thank you for helping

You cannot transfer software from one disk to another. You will have to install the software again.
You can create an image of the new laptop HDD and an image of the old laptop SSD.
You could burn the HDD image to the SSD (or m.2 if supported) and install the SSD on the new computer.
The image of the SSD you can burn it to the HDD or whatever disk you may want... but the disk with the image from the SSD should go back to the old laptop.

 

[USAFRet]

So how do I keep all my data, software and games on my current drive, while importing all of the drivers, software and the Windows 10 from the original drive?

By sprinkling liberal amounts of magic dust, which does not exist.

You can't move programs between OS's.
You can't move OS's between laptops. Either a drive, or a clone of a drive.


We can maybe assist in getting the right drive in the right system, but the software, as it sits, can't be moved around like you desire.

 

[richardklein68]

it turned out that the HDD was empty, not even an OS. So I did not clone anything or make an image. I have stuck the SSD back into the new system and there are no new problems... just the old ones

 

[richardklein68]

so should I just format the SSD or return it to factory settings?

 

[USAFRet]

it turned out that the HDD was empty, not even an OS. So I did not clone anything or make an image. I have stuck the SSD back into the new system and there are no new problems... just the old ones

"old problems"
Such as?