Question Transfering Laptop Storage

[MatthewJamess]

HI! Got an old and new laptop. New laptop has a fresh windows install, and 250gb of storage, and old laptop has a 1tb hdd which is almost full of useful daily use work files. my new laptop also has a free slot for a hdd. Can I simply pull the drive from the old laptop and plug it into the new one?

 

[USAFRet]

HI! Got an old and new laptop. New laptop has a fresh windows install, and 250gb of storage, and old laptop has a 1tb hdd which is almost full of useful daily use work files. my new laptop also has a free slot for a hdd. Can I simply pull the drive from the old laptop and plug it into the new one?

Maybe.

Depends on exactly what is on the HDD.
Just files, you're OK.
Applications won't work.
On the off chance it also contains the boot partition from the old laptop, the old laptop will now fail to boot. (by 'boot partition', I don't mean Windows)

 

[MatthewJamess]

Maybe.

Depends on exactly what is on the HDD.
Just files, you're OK.
Applications won't work.
On the off chance it also contains the boot partition from the old laptop, the old laptop will now fail to boot. (by 'boot partition', I don't mean Windows)

the old laptop only had that one hard drive, so I'm guessing everything is in it yeah. I don't care about apps not working right away, meaning I know I will have to re download and re install them on the new drive, but I was afraid of app files on both drives being a problem.
About the old laptop not working, I know I will need to install a new drive on it if I want to use it in the future, but what do u mean when mentioning "Fail to boot"?
Thanks for your response!

 

[USAFRet]

the old laptop only had that one hard drive, so I'm guessing everything is in it yeah. I don't care about apps not working right away, meaning I know I will have to re download and re install them on the new drive, but I was afraid of app files on both drives being a problem.
About the old laptop not working, I know I will need to install a new drive on it if I want to use it in the future, but what do u mean when mentioning "Fail to boot"?
Thanks for your response!

If that was the only drive, that laptop now needs a new drive.

But ideally, what you want to do is find all the personal and work files on that drive, and copy those off to some other drive.
Put that in the new laptop, instead of the whole old OS drive.

Does the old laptop still work?

 

[MatthewJamess]

If that was the only drive, that laptop now needs a new drive.

But ideally, what you want to do is find all the personal and work files on that drive, and copy those off to some other drive.
Put that in the new laptop, instead of the whole old OS drive.

Does the old laptop still work?

the old laptop does still work yeah, but combining an almost full hdd with old components means it takes about 40 minutes just to boot, and you better not even look at it while doing so or might explode.
It's my mums computer, anm I'm giving her my previous laptop for the change. the "new" one is also quite a few years old already, but galaxies away from hers.
Given I don't really even know what she has on her files and how she has everything organized, I though best to just move the drive, so that she'd have everything stay as is (and I'd just add a shotcut to her old system folder on the desktop). I also don't have a tb laptop compatible drive laying arround, so I wasn't considering moving every file from the old drive as a possibility.

 

[USAFRet]

Given I don't really even know what she has on her files and how she has everything organized, I though best to just move the drive, so that she'd have everything stay as is (and I'd just add a shotcut to her old system folder on the desktop). I also don't have a tb laptop compatible drive laying arround, so I wasn't considering moving every file from the old drive as a possibility.

Its not quite that easy.
Everything is NOT in the same place. This drive will have a different drive letter and user permissions.

The default Libraries in the OS on the new laptop will not show the data in the Libraries in the old OS drive.