Swap hard drive on identical PCs and retain all programs, and settings

[TampaDave]

I currently have an HP Pavillion G70 that has some broken hardware (hinges for screen) but other wise works fine. It's running Windows 7, Ultimate - 32 bit.

I'd like to buy a used version of the same PC model and simply swap the hard drive from mine into the purchased PC.

Will this retain all the programs, settings and files? Or are there some things that are tied to the motherboard or other hardware devices.

Thanks for your help.

 

[gregrocker]

As long as the mobo is the same it should maintain activation or reactivate if prompted. So I'd confirm that first.

There are other factors including HID and SID which may require reactivation if HD starts on its own. But you may get lucky. Swapping HD to the same exact model is nearly foolproof.