Replacing my hdd... some questions.

fishnbanjo said:

It may give you a warning telling you the hard drive was not original to the PC and that you may have to make some changes if you proceed, this happens with drives moved from an OEM provided OS to another with the same OEM maker, I have not tried it with different PC makers so YMMV. It should be able to boot into safe mode and find the correct drivers to run the OS which will more than likely be different unless all the specs are the same as the PC it comes from in which case it would simply boot I have done this with 2 laptops I own that are exact in every way and it worked flawlessly.

do you think it wil give me that message provided my laptop came with vista but i went out and bought windows 7. Im not running an OEM OS, just a clean win 7 install.

thomas242 said:

If you going to use it as the primary drive you are going to have to reformat it because the hard drive controller on you motherboard more then likely is not the same. Unless you are putting it into the same model lap top but even then I reform mat it and start fresh if I was you

hold on. are u referring to when i install the new hdd on my laptop, or if i use the old hdd on a different laptop? If the first case, then wouldnt i just format it when im in the windows 7 install setup?

Western Digital Scorpio Blue 5200 RPM SATA Mobile: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo

would a hdd like this be fine in terms of compatibility?

Before you remove the old HD, remove its product key by running elevated command: slmgr -upk

When you install it in new laptop, it might startup and swap out all drivers, requesting several restarts as this is common now with WIn7's vast driverstore.

Then you can put in the new Product Key from COA sticker on bottom of machine, or purchased retail.

gregrocker said:

Before you remove the old HD, remove its product key by running elevated command: slmgr -upk

When you install it in new laptop, it might startup and swap out all drivers, requesting several restarts as this is common now with WIn7's vast driverstore.

Then you can put in the new Product Key from COA sticker on bottom of machine, or purchased retail.

ok i'll do that. thanks

I was talking about the old hard drive

DaRonRon said:

hold on. are u referring to when i install the new hdd on my laptop, or if i use the old hdd on a different laptop? If the first case, then wouldnt i just format it when im in the windows 7 install setup?

DaRonRon,

I'm late in to this, but is cloning a reasonable approach for your situation:

CREATE A SYSTEM REPAIR DISK

START | type System Repair | Enter key | Create Disk button

CREATE AND RESTORE A SYSTEM IMAGE

CREATE A SYSTEM IMAGE BACKUP
· START | type Backup your computer | Enter key
· In left-hand pane, select Create a System Image
· select where you want to save the backup | Next
· Select the drives you want to backup | Next
· Start Backup button
· Finish button after completion


RESTORE A SYSTEM IMAGE BACKUP
· Boot from the System Repair CD you created.
· Connect the external drive with the backup image
· NEXT button (change language if desired)
· Restore your computer using a system image
that you created earlier radio button
· NEXT button
· Use the latest available system image radio button
· NEXT button
· Format and repartition disks checkbox
· NEXT button
· FINISH button
· YES button

CLONE A DISK

Yes, you can use the Create & Restore steps listed above when you want to replace your hard disk with one of same or larger size.