Can I transfer a hard drive to a similar laptop??

OK,

So I fried my HP laptop and I am stuck without a recent backup. (silly boy).

Anyway, a friend has exactly the same laptop so do you think it will be possible to just swap my hardrive with his and power up his laptop with my hardrive? That way I can at least access my important files and folders.

Or maybe windows will detect the different system and refuse to boot?

Thoughts please.

I doubt you'll have any luck with that, you could have asked that in your other thread since it's the same issue.

http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/305970-problems-permissions.html

I've done exactly that with defective HP's (67xxb range), includes using same model laptops to open up HD's locked with HP's Drivelock (known password, of course), files always successfully retrieved. So, worth a try, whatever the outcome it should not break anything (but remember to power everything down before removing\fitting a HD ;O) Good luck.