Removed Win 7 drive- plugged into 3.0 USB but won't boot

[PhilChris]

My HP laptop died but the drive worked. I removed the drive, bought an adaptor to plug it into my USB 3.0 port on my new HP G7 2269wm laptop. It has Win 7 Home Premium but won't boot up on my new computer even though I change the bios to select the port. I don't want to install a new Win 7 over it as it will overwrite my info. I currently have a dual boot system now: Windows 8 and Windows 7. But the Windows 7 is a clean install and I want to run the Win 7 from my old laptop through my USB 3.0 port. Any ideas?

 

[AddRAM]

You can`t just swap a drive to a new system and expect it to boot.

There are things you would have to do to it before you remove it from the old system, but in your case you can`t.

You have to reinstall windows on the hard drive. Or use it as another storage drive.

 

[VistaKing]

For you to boot off a USB 3.0 you would have to slipstream the driver to the drive . Windows 7 doesn't have USB 3.0 builtin drivers but windows 8 does .

What exactly are you trying to do from the external hard drive ?

 

[AddRAM]

But you should be able to add it to the system and get your data off it.

 

[VistaKing]

On the Hp when you press F9 for the boot options does the hard drive show up ? Could be under USB device

 

[whs]

It probably won't work. Once you solved the driver problem you will most likely run into an activation problem if that is an OEM installed system. I would get the user files off and reformat the HDD for additional storage.

 

[AddRAM]

 

[PhilChris]

Guys, thanks for the help. I was going to run it and try to install it on my new laptop as a dual boot. I did add a clean copy of Win 7 to my laptop and now have Win 8 and Win 7. I thought also if I could run it as a Win 7 drive through the USB 3.0 port, then I could use the Win 7 transfer tool to move my files. I probably can't transfer the operating system from my old laptop hard drive to my new partitioned hard drive because the new partitioned drive is labeled as: Windows 8 is C drive, Windows 7 is labeled F drive, my Windows 8 system restore is labeled D drive and the dvd drive is labeled E drive. My old Windows 7 laptop drive was labeled C drive and someone told me I'd have to use a program to relabel the old drive registry letters from "C" to "F" as the new system is labeled. I guess I'll just transfer my files the long way and use it for storage.

 

[PhilChris]

On the Hp when you press F9 for the boot options does the hard drive show up ? Could be under USB device

No, the only hard drive that shows up is the internal drive. I can see the drive once I've booted into Windows using diskmanager.

 

[whs]

I think you are doing the right thing by just copying your files. Then reformat it to NTFS (highlight andright click in Computer). Then you have a handy drive e.g. for images and non-essential data.

 

[VistaKing]

Have you tried pluging it into a 2.0 USB ?