Used Laptop hard drive to desktop

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Mason Harr

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Aug 2, 2013
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I am using an old laptop hard drive on a desktop pc of my old parts. My laptop hard drive has had windows 7 32bit installed on it for years. Whenever I boot it up, with the laptop hard drive plugged into the desktop, it crashes almost as soon as it has the windows startup screen and goes to windows repair , which doesn't fix it. Are there any settings or properties I would have to change on the laptop with the hard drive in it, before I can swap it succesfully? Thanks. It worked fine on the laptop.
 
Solution
R_1
You will need to re-install windows with a valid key. laptops come with OEM copies of Windows and cannot be activated on another machine.
it is not booting because there are settings and drivers specific to the laptop that will not work with the new system. A Re-installation is in order.
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R_1

R_1

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Sep 8, 2015
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You will need to re-install windows with a valid key. laptops come with OEM copies of Windows and cannot be activated on another machine.
it is not booting because there are settings and drivers specific to the laptop that will not work with the new system. A Re-installation is in order.
 
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Rookie_MIB

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Jul 27, 2013
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The reason is very simple:

The OS has a bunch of drivers for the LAPTOP which it thinks it's supposed to load when it boots. However, going to the desktop switches all that hardware to a completely different set. Thus - it goes crash when it tries to load the base drivers.

In addition, you'd need to re-license Win7 since it would detect a whole slew of different hardware and realize it's in a different machine.

What you could do - I've never tried it but in -theory- it could work:

1) put the drive back in the laptop
2) boot into windows, get into the device manager.
3) delete all the hardware -
4) turn off laptop.
5) switch the drive.
6) windows might boot, and start autodetecting hardware.

That might prevent the crashing. You may even get to a desktop.
 
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synphul

synphul

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Mar 11, 2011
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What R_1 suggested. It's recommended to reinstall windows any time the motherboard changes. The drivers are instructions telling the various parts on the motherboard how to work properly. When you change motherboards and the components onboard are different from those on the previous mobo, they don't run well on wrong instructions.

Backup any personal data you don't want to lose, put the drive into the pc and using the windows installation disc (or other media, thumbdrive etc) format the laptop drive which completely erases it. Reinstall windows so it can load the proper drivers.
 
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