New
#1
Can I swap in a hard drive from another computer temporarily?
I recently obtained a spare computer (Windows 7) that has a power problem, and I won't be able to check out the hard disk on it until the problem is remedied. Meanwhile, I'd like to get a heads-up on the condition of the hard drive. The only other computer I have handy right now is my current laptop, which has a single hard drive bay and is running Windows Vista.
Can I swap in the hard drive and boot up my laptop, or is this asking for trouble? The computers are both HP Pavilion laptops with very similar hardware (although CPU/MB is different [Intel vs. AMD]). Or will booting up cause the computer to do some writing to the hard drive that may affect its ability to boot successfully in the original host computer?