[SOLVED] Working SSD from one laptop to another

[Angola Tom]

I have ayear old HP Elitebook 840 G6 the keyboard of which recently failed. It works fine with an external USB keyboard. I bought myself a new HP Pavilion 15-eg0458nia with the intention of swapping the SSD from the Elitebook into the new Pavilion. But it does not work. I get a basic screen asking me to choose the keyboard layout, I select 'Portuguese', and then after a while I am told something has gone wrong and the computer must restart which will be done for me. It then enters a never ending cycle of rebooting, selecting keyboard layout and failing.

Does anyone have any ideas as I see little difference in what I am trying to do and installing a cloned drive?

 

[kanewolf]

I have ayear old HP Elitebook 840 G6 the keyboard of which recently failed. It works fine with an external USB keyboard. I bought myself a new HP Pavilion 15-eg0458nia with the intention of swapping the SSD from the Elitebook into the new Pavilion. But it does not work. I get a basic screen asking me to choose the keyboard layout, I select 'Portuguese', and then after a while I am told something has gone wrong and the computer must restart which will be done for me. It then enters a never ending cycle of rebooting, selecting keyboard layout and failing.

Does anyone have any ideas as I see little difference in what I am trying to do and installing a cloned drive?

Moving an OS install from one motherboard to another has about a 30% success.
It might work fine.
It might work but have gremlins.
It might not boot at all.

You are in the last category. Laptops are more specialized than desktops. You went from an 8th generation intel to an 11th generation. Too much hardware difference.

Cloning an OS does not change motherboards. It just moves the OS to different media.

 

[Angola Tom]

Moving an OS install from one motherboard to another has about a 30% success.
It might work fine.
It might work but have gremlins.
It might not boot at all.

You are in the last category.

Cloning an OS does not change motherboards. It just moves the OS to different media.

Thanks for responding Kanewolf. I am not cloning, merely swapping a functioning SSD from one laptop to another.

 

[kanewolf]

Thanks for responding Kanewolf. I am not cloning, merely swapping a functioning SSD from one laptop to another.

Yep. And that is changing motherboards that SSD is connected to. You fall into the third category. Doesn't work.

 

[geofelt]

It might have been easier to simply buy a replacement keyboard for about $50.

If the ssd is the C drive, it is likely to work.
The original C drive was set up with specific hardware in mind. Likely your new laptop is significantly different in some way. Then also, you need to bypass any secure or fast boot settings in the bios.

If it is a data drive, that is possible if the new laptop has a second drive slot.
Or, if you have data files you need to recover, you can connect the old C drive via a usb adapter and copy the data.

 

[Angola Tom]

OK. So instead of swapping the drives, how could I clone my old drive onto the new laptop?

 

[ex_bubblehead]

OK. So instead of swapping the drives, how could I clone my old drive onto the new laptop?

You don't clone, that's exactly the same as putting the drive into another laptop. You have to do a clean install on the new platform which will require reinstalling all software. You can copy personal files and such afterward.

 

[Angola Tom]

It might have been easier to simply buy a replacement keyboard for about $50.

If the ssd is the C drive, it is likely to work.
The original C drive was set up with specific hardware in mind. Likely your new laptop is significantly different in some way. Then also, you need to bypass any secure or fast boot settings in the bios.

If it is a data drive, that is possible if the new laptop has a second drive slot.
Or, if you have data files you need to recover, you can connect the old C drive via a usb adapter and copy the data.

Not in Angola it isn't Geofelt! I was trying this as a quick fix before resorting to having to order the parts in UK and have them shipped in, which will take ages...

 

[kanewolf]

You don't clone, that's exactly the same as putting the drive into another laptop. You have to do a clean install on the new platform which will require reinstalling all software. You can copy personal files and such afterward.

The spinning disk from the HP Pavilion 15-eg0458nia could be cloned to the SSD from the old laptop, overwriting everything on the SSD. That would require a USB attachment for the SSD and software like this -- https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

 

[larkspur]

Doesn't the new HP Pavilion already have a 512gb SSD with its own Windows already installed (that's what the HP support page says anyway)? Can't you just boot off of that? Then transfer any personal files from your old 256gb SSD to the new one over your LAN? Or is the HP support site showing me the wrong info?

 

[geofelt]

You presumably have apps on the old laptop that you want to preserve on the new.
I see no way to make that happen.
Moving the original C drive to the new via cloning or physical move still leaves you with an unworkable C drive on the new system.
The probable reason is that the original has a intel processor and the new has an amd processor.
All of the supporting systems are different.
Can you return the new and buy an exact replacement for the original?
There is a possibility that that might boot up ok.

Is ebay available to you? you might find a replacement keyboard there.

 

[Angola Tom]

You presumably have apps on the old laptop that you want to preserve on the new.
I see no way to make that happen.
Moving the original C drive to the new via cloning or physical move still leaves you with an unworkable C drive on the new system.
The probable reason is that the original has a intel processor and the new has an amd processor.
All of the supporting systems are different.
Can you return the new and buy an exact replacement for the original?
There is a possibility that that might boot up ok.

Is ebay available to you? you might find a replacement keyboard there.

Just checked the 'About' in settings and the new laptop is fitted with an 11th Gen Intel(R) Core i5-1135G7 processor. The old one is fitted with an i7-8665U

Sadly, ebay is not open to us here. Well it is, just that no-one will ship to Angola. The time taken to ship was what I was hoping to avoid anyway.

 

[Angola Tom]

Doesn't the new HP Pavilion already have a 512gb SSD with its own Windows already installed (that's what the HP support page says anyway)? Can't you just boot off of that? Then transfer any personal files from your old 256gb SSD to the new one over your LAN? Or is the HP support site showing me the wrong info?

No, it's not showing you the wrong info. Both drives are identical 512 Gb SSD. You are correct, it is the software I need.

The thing that irritates me is that I have done this before with no problem. I even cloned a very old spinning drive from a Dell laptop onto an HP SSD using Macrium Pro with no problems.

 

[USAFRet]

The thing that irritates me is that I have done this before with no problem. I even cloned a very old spinning drive from a Dell laptop onto an HP SSD using Macrium Pro with no problems.

And you lucked out on that particular case.

Often, it fails.

Too many people tried it once and seen it work, or seen a friend do it once and it worked.
Then, they think it works "all the time".

It does not.