Laptop and swapping hard drives

[orangeman]

Here's my question. My sons dell laptop has died. The hard drive is still good and all of his data is on it. If I were to purchase a similar (but not the same) dell laptop, what wuld happen if I were to remove the old hard drive and install it in the new laptop. I assume there might be some hiccups when I power on and the hardware is all new and different from the old laptop. Would the old hard drive adapt it's settings of what it remembers being installed on the old laptop to reflect what is now on the new laptop.

In short will a simple hard drive swap work???

 

[carnageX]

You'll basically have a 50/50 shot of it working. I've only really had it successfully work on Pro versions of Windows.

 

[Joe C]

Well if the old laptop had Vista or Windows 7, and the new one will have Windows 10, chances are very slim it'll boot up.
You can get a sata adapter to USB and connect the old drive to the new laptop to get personal data off the old drive and onto the new
https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-SATA-Drive-Adapter-Cable/dp/B00HJZJI84

 

[strollin]

What's already been said above is true BUT, that doesn't mean you wouldn't be able to recover the data from the old drive (assuming the drive is good). You can get an external enclosure or a dock or a USB adapter that would allow you to connect the old drive to the new laptop and copy the data from the old drive to the new drive.