Swapping Disks Between Two Computers

ArtShapiro · 16 Nov 2016

For various weird reasons I have the need to swap the hard drives (SSD) between two similar Thinkpads. They are architecturally similar so I'm reasonably sure that after a few routine automatic driver updates both will run fine.

Of course, at that point both will presumably report as non-activated. And ditto for the Microsoft Office activation.

Both are activated with "digital entitlements" or however it's phrased now.

Having not faced the issue before: is this a resolvable situation or am I doomed?

Art

Superfly · 16 Nov 2016

If each has it's own digital licence they will be updated after the swap, the "new" SSD has no effect on the acquisition of that notebook's digital licence.

Bree · 16 Nov 2016

Superfly said:

If each has it's own digital licence they will be updated after the swap, the "new" SSD has no effect on the acquisition of that notebook's digital licence.

Provided, that is, that both have digital licences for the same version of Windows - Pro and Pro, or Home and Home.

lx07 · 16 Nov 2016

I do the same - swapping from VM to real hardware and back (both have separate digital entitlement). Windows Activation is perfectly fine but my Microsoft Account needs to be re-verified every switch (they send a code by SMS).

Don't know about Office as I don't have it installed there but it tends to be a bit more picky in my experience.

Superfly · 16 Nov 2016

Bree said:

Provided, that is, that both have digital licences for the same version of Windows - Pro and Pro, or Home and Home.

Yup, I meant that by implication...

lx07 said:

I do the same - swapping from VM to real hardware and back (both have separate digital entitlement). Windows Activation is perfectly fine but my Microsoft Account needs to be re-verified every switch (they send a code by SMS).

Don't know about Office as I don't have it installed there but it tends to be a bit more picky in my experience.

Yup, Office will need to be re-activated again on the "new" hardware - it's far more picky, as you say. (well, at least phone activation still works with it, so that's a good thing)

ArtShapiro · 16 Nov 2016

Bree said:

Provided, that is, that both have digital licences for the same version of Windows - Pro and Pro, or Home and Home.

Well, it seems one of them is Pro and the other Home, and I have no bloody idea how I ended up with an installation of Home.

I'll bore everyone with the background to the enquiry: The Home machine is one I gave to a relative a few years ago. It was sent back to me in July so I could update it with Windows 10, which I did and sent the machine back cross-country. Last week I was contacted and told that the machine had totally died - no boot, no lights, etc. The local community help volunteer at that person's public library couldn't get it to work either. So I volunteered to swap the machine with one of my own - thus the disk swap to avoid reinstalling programs, fine-tuning, etc., etc.

It arrived by FedEx yesterday. I plugged it in, and it booted up just fine. The battery was totally drained. I suspect the cord wasn't securely pushed into the power brick - the Thinkpad two-wire guys don't hold very well, whereas the three-wire connections are normally secure.

Nevertheless, I'm inclined to swap machines - meaning disks - because the "failing" machine is actually a smidge better than the potential trade, and the relative doesn't need the better machine. (R61 vs. T61 if you speak Thinkpad). And if there really is a problem, and it's intermittant, I don't really care as I have a bunch of good Thinkpads.

So that's the strange story, and if the fact that one is (inexplicably) Home and the other Pro is a show-stopper, then I'm somewhat stuck.

Art

ArtShapiro · 16 Nov 2016

OK, if anyone cares: to my surprise, I came home this afternoon and the "bad" machine was stone dead, just as claimed. So we do have an intermittent issue. Using a trick I know with the power button, I coaxed it back to life. Clearly this wouldn't be a acceptable to the highly-nontechnical owner, so I went ahead and swapped the discs. Sure enough, both needed activation.

On the replacement machine that's going back to the sender, I was actually able to activate by going to the activation troubleshooter and reporting a significant hardware change. So the problem is solved. Because this is only 32 bit Windows Home, I'll downsize the 4 Gits memory to 3 Gigs and upsize the 3 Gigs of my now-owned bad machine to 4 Gigs.

Unfortunately, the bad machine won't activate because Windows detected the Home digital entitlement and won't allow the Pro OS to activate. I'll see if I have some spare 7 or 8.1 keys lying around. As I don't really need the machine, there's no urgency. EDIT FOLLOWUP: And that worked. Both machines are fine.

Art