Transferring or Restoring WIN 10 system on an new WIN 11 computer

ils · 17 Jan 2022

My Dell E5430 Laptop (2013) stopped working because the fan died and the processor overheated. The Laptop has an i5 processor running WIN 10 Home from a Crucial 525GB SATA 2.5" SSD. I have just purchased a new desktop replacement, Dell XPS 8940, with an i7 processor running WIN 11 Home, with one 256GB SSD and one 1 TB HD. I would like to avoid reinstalling several dozen installed programs (e.g., MS Office 2019, Word Perfect, Adobe Acrobat Pro, and smaller). Which of these three options will be best to try:
1. Moving my WIN 10 SSD to the XPS computer and boot from it. (Is that possible these days? Years ago, it was said that you couldn’t move on HD to a new computer with a different motherboard.)
2. Restoring the WIN 10 Home system on the WIN 11 Home computer using either of the two backups I made: I have a WindowsImageBackup and a Macrium backup of the Laptop.
PS. I discovered that I could get the laptop to work, even tho the fan died, by blowing air from a hair dryer (set to ‘cool air’) beneath the laptop. I also considered replacing the fan, but youtube videos showed it’s too much work, so I bought the new computer instead.

SIW2 · 17 Jan 2022

I am assuming the machine you ordered is 11 gen intel. If I was buying new I would go for 12th gen

1. Moving my WIN 10 SSD to the XPS computer and boot from it. (Is that possible these days?

yes, in most cases. Win10 is quite good at adjusting itself to different hardware.

2. Restoring the WIN 10 Home system on the WIN 11 Home computer using either of the two backups I made: I have a WindowsImageBackup and a Macrium backup of the Laptop.

Yes that should be doable. Your new machine might need irs drivers added to the restore boot media to be able to see the target disk.

this is the hp info, explaining that standard win10 boot.wim cannot see the target disk and how to fix it. However many newer oem machines with intel 11th gen cpu from dell, acer, etc need the same
https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06983517

If that is complicated, you can borrow my boot media which supports it
HERE

dalchina · 17 Jan 2022

My Dell E5430 Laptop (2013)

Is that MBR (legacy)? Or UEFI?

You can only directly move a disk if both systems are UEFI or both MBR.

And before you do so, ensure you do indeed have a current image of ALL partitions on the disk.

SIW2 · 17 Jan 2022

That is a good point. If the new machine only supports efi, that usually means the disk needs to be gpt partition style. In that scenario, converting an existing mbr style disk to gpt before transferring it would be the way to go.

NavyLCDR · 17 Jan 2022

UEFI does not require GPT to boot from. UEFI will boot from MBR disks.

SIW2 · 17 Jan 2022

Yes, it is usually possible to create a fat32 partition for that purpose which most bios expect, but makes more sense to use gpt.
The words grandmother, eggs and suck spring to mind. I am not sure how finickety that oem machine is.

Bree · 17 Jan 2022

ils said:

1. Moving my WIN 10 SSD to the XPS computer and boot from it. (Is that possible these days? Years ago, it was said that you couldn’t move on HD to a new computer with a different motherboard.)

Yes, that's possible for Win10. In the old days activation was held within the installed OS and a hardware change would deactivate it. In Win10 activation is tied to the hardware ID of the PC and as long as there is a digital licence for Windows 10/11 on Microsoft's activation server linked to this PC's ID, then any Windows 10 or 11 boot drive will activate.

2. Restoring the WIN 10 Home system on the WIN 11 Home computer using either of the two backups I made: I have a WindowsImageBackup and a Macrium backup of the Laptop.

Restoring from a Macrium image to the new PC is probably the best option.

Others have already raised the issue of the image being from a Legacy/MBR system and the new system being UEFI/GPT. One way to get round that is to first clean install the same version of Windows 10 (eg 21H2) on the new PC. Then boot from a Macrium recovery usb, delete the existing C: partition, and restore JUST the C: partition from your Macrium image to replace it. You will then need to use the 'Fix Windows boot problems' tool on the Macrium recovery usb to rebuild the correct BCD entry.

SIW2 · 17 Jan 2022

What is the point of installing just to overwrite the windows partition?

Quicker way and no unnecessary writing to the ssd:

partition the target disk first with diskgenius, then apply the windows partition from either image ( diskgenius can apply the windows partition from a windows system image) then use bcdboot to populate the esp partition.

Bree · 17 Jan 2022

SIW2 said:

What is the point of installing just to overwrite the windows partition?

It creates all the standard partitions in the correct MS standard install layout, such as the EFI partition and the Recovery partition. No third party tools required, just a MS install usb.

Megahertz · 18 Jan 2022

The Dell E5430 laptop (2013) has a 2.5" SSD (Legacy- MBR or EFI-GPT)
The Dell XPS 8940 desktop has a M.2 NVMe EFI-GPT and a 3.5" HDD

This is what I would do:
- Create a Drive image backup from the XPS 8940 M.2 NVMe and save it to the 3.5" HDD.
- Detach (SATA or power cable) the 3.5" HDD and remove the M.2 NVMe. (better be safe than sorry)
- Attach the 2.5" SSD to the XPS 8940. Boot from a Win 10 USB installation drive and find out if the drive is MBR or GPT.
- If MBR, convert to EFI-GPT using MBR2GPT
- Boot from the 2.5" SSD and let windows adjust itself to the new hardware.
- When everything is working fine on the new hardware, shutdown, install the M.2 NVMe and attach the 3.5" HDD.
- Boot from the 2.5" SSD and clone the 2.5" SSD into the M.2 NVMe and then remove the 2.5" SSD or let both (2.5" SSD and M.2 NVMe) for dual boot (Win 10 from 2.5" SSD and Win 11 from M.2 NVMe)

For drive image use Macrium Reflect Free or DiskGenius