Move Hard Drive from One Laptop to Another

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  1. Posts : 18,432
    Windows 11 Pro
       #11

    zbook said:
    If there are two identical notebooks with factory OEM Windows 7 that are each upgraded to Windows 10:
    Should you be able to move the HDs back and forth to the different computers?
    Yes

    zbook said:
    For me there was failure to boot.
    Was or is this supposed to boot?
    If so how do you troubleshoot?
    Need to see the disk management screenshot of the HDD in question. If it has an NTFS formatted System partition, then it is likely that the computer it won't boot in is set to boot it in UEFI mode. That needs to be changed by disabling secure boot, and then enabling CSM mode.
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 41,474
    windows 10 professional version 1607 build 14393.969 64 bit
       #12

    NavyLCDR said:
    Yes



    Need to see the disk management screenshot of the HDD in question. If it has an NTFS formatted System partition, then it is likely that the computer it won't boot in is set to boot it in UEFI mode. That needs to be changed by disabling secure boot, and then enabling CSM mode.


    The move was made years ago and the computers may have had clean or custom installs.

    Computer 1: Msinfo32
    UEFI
    Secure Boot State: off
    command prompt results: winload.efi

    Computer 2: Msinfo32
    Legacy
    Secure Boot State: Unsupported
    Command prompt result: winload.exe

    Do you know a method to check CSM status without opening the BIOS?

    How would you move 1 to 2? Switch BIOS to UEFI or UEFI with CSM?
    How would you move 2 to 1? Switch BIOS from UEFI to UEFI with CSM or Legacy?


    If you still need disk management I'll upload from the respective computers.
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 18,432
    Windows 11 Pro
       #13

    The target computer has to be changed to match the original computer. Moving 1 to 2, change 2 to boot in UEFI mode. Moving 2 to 1 you need to enable CSM mode and boot in that mode on computer 1.

    You can make a universally bootable hard HDD/SSD by partitioning it with MBR partitioning, have a FAT32 system partitioned marked as active, and universal boot files written to it with the bcdboot command using the /f ALL switch.
      My Computer


 

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