duoi Veteran Posted July 3, 2015 Veteran Share Posted July 3, 2015 So I have an i3 laptop I want to migrate away from into an i7 desktop. Completely different internals, of course. How much trouble would I have if I clone the laptop's SSD onto a new SSD ... operating system and all. Anyone done it before? How did it go? TIA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T3X4S Posted July 3, 2015 Share Posted July 3, 2015 So I have an i3 laptop I want to migrate away from into an i7 desktop. Completely different internals, of course. How much trouble would I have if I clone the laptop's SSD onto a new SSD ... operating system and all. Anyone done it before? How did it go? TIA Short answer - it wont work Long answer - even if you eventually get it to load, you will have driver problem after driver problem. You can only transplant an OS if you are moving to the same chipset - in this case, you are not. It wont work. Even if you spent days slipstreaming in drivers, would you really want to use a computer that is so susceptible to BSOD ? crashes ? and possible corruption ? Ideally, you would want to do a fresh install regardless. Short Answer - it wont work. Some people in here might tell you some convaluted way where it might have a slight chance - but it wont, not smoothly at least. Back up your important stuff, and install a fresh OS - it might be a pain but you will have a pristine, fresh OS image. A much better starting point than some Frankenstein that you have no idea if it will crash or not. Shiranui 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SionicIon Posted July 3, 2015 Share Posted July 3, 2015 I would have agreed in the past that this couldn't be done. But Windows has become much more flexible in the past years. Ever since Windows to Go was introduced with Windows 8, an official USB Windows environment meant supporting multiple devices. As long as the install is at least Windows 8 or newer, and you correctly make it bootable (going from BIOS to UEFI boot scenario for example), then Windows will detect the device it is running on is different and prepare itself on boot by installing drivers, then it will restart after this and boot again, this time, to the login screen. You may need to get the rest of the drivers yourself, for example, the proper graphics driver or wifi driver. Windows should at least figure out how to boot though, thanks to the work done to support booting off external USB devices. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shiranui Posted July 3, 2015 Share Posted July 3, 2015 What T3X4S said. End of thread. If it boots at all, you will have driver problems, and your license activation will also fail. I recently cloned 25 SSDs at work, but the hardware in the new machines was EXACTLY the same and the cloned disks were in an unlicensed state so I could change the license keys for each machine individually afterwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Decryptor Veteran Posted July 3, 2015 Veteran Share Posted July 3, 2015 I would have agreed in the past that this couldn't be done. But Windows has become much more flexible in the past years. Ever since Windows to Go was introduced with Windows 8, an official USB Windows environment meant supporting multiple devices. As long as the install is at least Windows 8 or newer, and you correctly make it bootable (going from BIOS to UEFI boot scenario for example), then Windows will detect the device it is running on is different and prepare itself on boot by installing drivers, then it will restart after this and boot again, this time, to the login screen. You may need to get the rest of the drivers yourself, for example, the proper graphics driver or wifi driver. Windows should at least figure out how to boot though, thanks to the work done to support booting off external USB devices. Yeah, Windows has no problems being transplanted across computers these days, auto-detects everything on boot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Supervisor Posted July 3, 2015 Supervisor Share Posted July 3, 2015 Hello, I would suggest taking the opportunity to go with a clean install. Starting with a clean slate on the Core i7-based desktop system will ensure you don't bring over any odd settings or problems from the old Core i3-based notebook computer. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomo Posted July 3, 2015 Share Posted July 3, 2015 You can strip out the drivers using something like Paragon Hard Disk Manager, this will allow the new computer to pick the basic drivers to allow it to boot. P2P Adjust OS Wizard will add all required drivers smoothly and easily, making your operating system bootable on your new machine or on the altered hardware Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam20 Posted July 3, 2015 Share Posted July 3, 2015 I would have agreed in the past that this couldn't be done. But Windows has become much more flexible in the past years. Ever since Windows to Go was introduced with Windows 8, an official USB Windows environment meant supporting multiple devices. As long as the install is at least Windows 8 or newer, and you correctly make it bootable (going from BIOS to UEFI boot scenario for example), then Windows will detect the device it is running on is different and prepare itself on boot by installing drivers, then it will restart after this and boot again, this time, to the login screen. You may need to get the rest of the drivers yourself, for example, the proper graphics driver or wifi driver. Windows should at least figure out how to boot though, thanks to the work done to support booting off external USB devices. I agree with this, if you get up and running ok then run the following with devcon.exe to remove none present devices from the system to tidy it up: https://github.com/kevinoid/remove-nonpresent-devices Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kozukumi Posted July 3, 2015 Share Posted July 3, 2015 Windows 8.1 should work. It will just drop down to the generic drivers if it doesn't have a specific one. Things have changed a lot since the XP days. Having said that I would rather a clean install on new hardware personally. Just because it will work doesn't mean it is worth the hassle if something doesn't quite work right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SledgeNZ Posted July 3, 2015 Share Posted July 3, 2015 Pre-Win8 this was a pain in the arse. As a few others have mentioned this is much easier with Win8 based installs. Have successfully transplanted ssd's from laptops to desktops and vice versa with completely different chipsets (The one commonality for me they are Intel based as opposed to AMD). Was very surprised as knew how hard this was to do with prior versions of Windows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T3X4S Posted July 3, 2015 Share Posted July 3, 2015 My post of "it wont work" was based on Win7 I know nothing about win8.1 so if its no longer an issue - great Personally, I would never miss out on a chance for a clean OS install - start fresh, and be confident in the fact you started fresh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted July 3, 2015 MVC Share Posted July 3, 2015 I would recommend generalizing the installation via sysprep and putting it in the new computer. windows key + R ... sysprep enter. Upon first boot it will install all the hardware that is on the new machine. Yusuf M. 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
farmeunit Posted July 3, 2015 Share Posted July 3, 2015 You could use something like Acronis and Universal Restore, but it's not free. Or look into SYSPREP, then image it, then install new drivers. You could try a straight image, first, though. Since it's Intel-Intel it might work. Intel to AMD would be doubtful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted July 3, 2015 MVC Share Posted July 3, 2015 You could use something like Acronis and Universal Restore, but it's not free. Or look into SYSPREP, then image it, then install new drivers. You could try a straight image, first, though. Since it's Intel-Intel it might work. Intel to AMD would be doubtful. Intel to AMD will work just fine if you generalize it first with sysprep. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Decryptor Veteran Posted July 4, 2015 Veteran Share Posted July 4, 2015 My post of "it wont work" was based on Win7 I know nothing about win8.1 so if its no longer an issue - great Personally, I would never miss out on a chance for a clean OS install - start fresh, and be confident in the fact you started fresh Yeah, like other people have said, they fixed those issue with 8+. It behaves much like Linux now where it auto-detects changes and handles them properly, you can move from a IDE HDD with AMD to a AHCI SSD with Intel and the worst that would happen is you'd have to re-activate it. T3X4S 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yusuf M. Veteran Posted July 4, 2015 Veteran Share Posted July 4, 2015 I would recommend generalizing the installation via sysprep and putting it in the new computer. windows key + R ... sysprep enter. Upon first boot it will install all the hardware that is on the new machine. I wasn't aware of that. I would've simply uninstalled my drivers before cloning it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WinOutreach2 Posted July 7, 2015 Share Posted July 7, 2015 Even in Windows 7, migrating between hardware wasn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted July 18, 2015 MVC Share Posted July 18, 2015 This that, sysprep, blah blah blah.. Why would anyone go through this nonsense when you can have a clean install in a few minutes.. I just don't get it.. How many freaking programs do you have installed? Maybe its time not to have all that junk installed. Grab your bookmarks and your files off your old drive.. Its an SSD and a new fast machine.. If it takes you more than 1 hour your doing it freaking wrong!! Longest part will be the windows updates, etc. But those can be done over a few days in the background. goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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