Can you just 'SWAP' a hard drive into a different computer?

Can you take a working hard drive from a dead computer and just install it in a working computer and have it boot to Windows and just work? In today's video, I answer that question...and the results might just surprise you!

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◼ Sabrent USB-C docking station for SATA and m.2 with offline cloning
◼ StarTech 4-bay USB 3.0 hard drive docking station 6Gbps
◼ StarTech 2-bay USB 3.0 hard drive docking station SATA 6Gbps
◼ Netgear A6100 wifi adapter
◼ Godshark NVME to USB adapter M.2 SSD to Type-A USB 10Gbps
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◼ Defraggler (used to defragment and organize your files on hard drives, not for SSD):
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[shawnkeys]

Please don't change the way you do your videos, the time you take to explain and explain is GREAT for us folks who don't know much about computers, so we welcome all the explanations.

[k.b.tidwell]

Thanks for the video. Even though I'm not in the beginner camp, I love videos like this because they always give me perspectives on how to handle different repair scenarios.

Since I'm the computer guy in my family, I've set up OS's on a drive on my computer, then transplanted that into the owner's computers at many times. It lets me get everything mostly right in the peace and quiet of my Fortress of Solitude, and then fine-tune the setup on the destination machine. I love each and every one of my family members, but sometimes it can be hard to focus on details while being peppered with extraneous conversation, ya' know? So swapping drives is a long-standing efficiency-enhancement for me. I can talk about cousin Stacy's wedding or Uncle Ronald's hip replacement after the job is done (without fear of mistakes) lol.

[shoop]

I'm in my mid 50's I suck because I never truly bothered to learn the PC world. I know cpu's and gpu's and what drives are. However, when my computer does silly things I have no clue what to do. I recently found your channel and trying to follow your awesome way of explaining things. Yes, I am having issues with my system, and hope I find how to fix it with your videos. You are truly the only one I can understand at times. cheers.

[jbmatey]

I swapped the hard drives on my dell laptop to a newer dell laptop ... still working great ... now on Windows 11 ... it just worked

[AJComputerServicesUK]

I upgraded the Hard Drive in my older Imac for a 1Tb Drive which had Windows installed for a PC and was Gobsmacked when it started booting Windows and was completely useable! 😂 Anthony - Birmingham/UK 🇬🇧

[jepike]

Well done as always. I was curious - especially now that your viewers have grown so much (116K ftw!), who do YOU watch for education or entertainment? What channels or creators does The Computer Guy trust?

[sergeyd]

Thank you. A few random comments:
1) You do not specify if the HD you are transferring is just a data drive, or a bootable OS drive. That makes a lot of difference, doesn't it?
2) You seem to default to Windows OS only, and even more, you refer to Win 10 or 11. How about other systems? Even within Windows, there are people using earlier versions.
3) You mentioned a video card and a sound card several times. Unless one is a serious gamer or an audio/video engineer, who deals with audio/video cards these days? And most people have laptops now...

[MrBobWareham]

Yes you can if it's Linux, I move my hard drive from my laptop to my desktop using LMDE, and it just works.

[hphp]

I got a new laptop and I just did that. Put my old laptop's SSD (nvme m.2) into the new laptop. I needed to fix a bios setting VMD or VDM something related to RAID, had to uninstall old drivers, install new drivers and now it works. Saved me a ton of setting up windows and apps on it! Took me about 2-3h (rests for googling and thinking included).
+had to buy a new windows key online since completely new hardware didn't let me use the old Windows 10 license.

[notjustforhackers]

Yes, if you're running Linux ( but you might need to remove NVIDIA drivers first if its an AMD or Intel machine you're swapping to ).

[Turco]

6:10 Before running Windows update or any kind of driver updates, I'd recommend going into "Programs and Features" in Control Panel and removing the software that belonged to the hardware on the old laptop/desktop such as Audio, Video, Network, Chipset (motherboard). The most common issue I have seen with simply transferring a drive from the older machine to a newer one is the "Drive" and "Boot Mode" related settings in the BIOS. Like Windows was installed in the "legacy" mode on the old machine but on the new machine, BIOS is set to UEFI so it won't even see the drive yet alone Windows. Also if the drive setting was set to AHCI on the old machine and the new one is set to RAID (which is oddly the default setting on all OEM laptops), then the old drive wmight be detected but you will get an error saying "Missing operating system" best to let a pro or someone savvy help you with this type of a task.

[johnhpalmer]

I know this is a 2 month old video but wanted to caution that while yes, one can move drives from one PC to another, I've done that, however, if the system you are retiring and the drive is being moved to a new machine as a boot drive, and is a turnkey system from a computer manufacture, chances are it's an OEM OS, and if you ordered it with Office, chances are, it's also OEM, those can't transfer as I believe they are tied to the MB for the machine it was originally installed on. Thus, you will need to replace with a retail variant (OS/software from a store or online retail), THEN you can install as a fresh install, though you may have to copy/move all data files (documents etc) to another drive, install the new OS, then move data back.

As long as it's like for like (sata to sata etc) then yes, you can move drives. If not a boot drive, then the drive can be moved from computer to computer to computer all day long as long as it's working fine as they are storage/software drives only.

[claycassin]

Yes. If it isn't a system drive, then it is plug and play compatible (SATA or IDE adapter, of course). New versions of Windows can readjust(repair) itself to new hardware more often than not, so even that is usually possible, not that I would be that ham fisted about a system change myself. Always start fresh while you are at it. It's work, but nothing done right is easy.

[carlkeehn]

Thanks so much for all of your excellent computer advice. I have started a new pc build and this video is of great help to me... Keep up the great work.

[jozsiolah]

For Win 7, the DVD has to be inserted, from which the Windows was installed. Then the win will run, and will remain activated, it activates automatically again without asking for the dvd key. For me, it needed more retries before the windows accepted the other laptop, and by inserting the dvd, the windows activated automatically.

[shawnkeys]

Pay no attention to those who say "get to it already" you're doing just fine sir.

[Mantikal]

For windows there is another option (more like the final option) if you're trying to set yourself up on a new pc. It's for those that are willing to do a little extra work and spend some money.
If you purchased a new PC (or if you're building one - and installing to a new HD)
You can buy a USB hard drive docking station for sata drives. They're around $40 in price.
You boot up to your new version of windows and attach the docking station with the old HD inserted. It will show up in the windows file manager app.
Then just tunnel into it through its file system --> Windows ---> users ----> "Your user name" ---> to your Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos and Downloads folders
Just copy all their contents over to your new windows copy respective folders. Hopefully, you also were mindful enough (prior to doing this) to have made a .txt list of all the programs you had installed and exported an html file of your web browser bookmarks - to copy over too - to finish the new setup.

[anders]

Windows7 setup had an undocumented/unsupported parameter to remove all drivers for hardware, I think it was "/reconfigure" ?
You then shut down the system and plug in the harddrive to the new pc and boot up, was very slick but officially unsupported.
Could also be used with tools to transfer the partitions to a new harddrive.

[connerwilliams]

You make good videos and you look like one of the IT guys at my school

[arnonart]

i did it several times. both on windows and linux. except for one time, it worked with no problem.