Can I take the Hard drive out of one computer, and switch it with another?

Question

I have two Emachines, and I just want to take the harddrive out of my older one, with all my stuff on it and move it to this newer one?
Will the processors and all that from the new one still work?

Answer 1

It should work but if not boot from xp disk and at first option screen press "R" and then pick the windows you want to repair a command prompt will then appear and type "CHKDSK /? and it will give you options of what to type i believe you need to type "CHKDSK /C /R /P" OR "CHKDSK /C /R /F" and it will repair your operating system this usually works 4 me or i just set it to secondary and go to the drive and run programs from it which saves on system resources

Answer 2

Some stuff, but probably not your operating system (windows?). There is a way to do it, but it's not simple. Look on the net, there a some sites that will tell you what you have to do. You could try it, if it doesn't boot up just put the old harddrive back in. It's a simple switch as far as physically doing it, it's the software that gets complicated.

Answer 3

You should be able to take the old hard drive and put it in the new computer as a slave drive. The primary drive is the last one attached on the ribbon cable. Sometimes a jumper pin on the back of the hard drive needs to be set for slave unless it is already set as cable select.

You won't be able to run most of the programs that are on the slave drive without re-installing them. Programs have many files that are put in the Windows system folders and into the registry. Just moving the hard drive won't update Windows with the necessary information. You will have access to all you data files.

Answer 4

Well, yes and no.

You may have some luck with it, as they are both the same manufacturer, but many progams take note of the processor ID upon install and record it.
When the application starts up in the new computer, it will notice a different ID and will likely stop working.

This is to stop piracy, and has been in MS applications since XP.

Answer 5

There are 6 things that Windows XP looks for when it boots:
processor ID
Motherboard
Hard Drive
Video Chipset
Internet connection
CD Drives.

If more than two of those things are different, it will not work, and you will have to re-install the operating system.

The only way to do this is to switch from Windows to Linux. It works from machine to machine.

Answer 6

Yes it should work fine. Especially since they are both emachines. Windows will change or add drivers as needed. If problems arise hold down F8 key just before windows boots and push it into safe mode and then once logged into safe mode just tell pc to reboot.

Answer 7

Should be fine. The system will detect some 'new' hardware because the hardware of the 2nd machine is different, but you should be fine! I have done this several times.