Swapping hard drives between computers

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Trying to replace a hard drive in a Windows 10 machine with a hard drive from a functioning windows 7 machine. Thought I could just install the win 7 HD in the win 10 machine. Getting error messages and unable to start the win 10 machine with the win 7 HD. Obviously missing something Could use some help.

Art

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Trying to replace a hard drive in a Windows 10 machine with a hard drive from a functioning windows 7 machine. /QUOTE]

Why?
Is there an OS on the win 7 hdd?

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).

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Don’t want to have to copy MANY files to the new computer and want to keep Win 7. Yes, there is an operating system on the Win 7.

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Trying to replace a hard drive in a Windows 10 machine with a hard drive from a functioning windows 7 machine. Thought I could just install the win 7 HD in the win 10 machine. Getting error messages and unable to start the win 10 machine with the win 7 HD

Don’t want to have to copy MANY files to the new computer and want to keep Win 7. Yes, there is an operating system on the Win 7.

Bottom line ( if I understand you correctly ), from your explanation so far of what you want to do, won’t work as you describe it. You can’t just swap HDD’s w/different OS’s from different machines.

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).

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Scuttlebutt indicates one cannot simply swap hard-drives and OSs like you’re trying to do. I’m over-simplifying things — Windows is “married” to one computer at a time, no matter if MS or OEM.

"Take care of thy backups and thy restores shall take care of thee." Ben Franklin, revisted

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If the hard drive has an OS on it installed by the manufacturer of the PC it came from, it will probably be locked to the hardware of that computer and wont work on any other without being reformatted.
If it has a retail copy of the OS on it, it still wont work because none of the drivers will match the hardware of the receiving PC. If one has the original installation disk and key, it may be made to work, but it is not guaranteed so its better to do a clean install. Either way, its also necessary to use the MS automated utility to have the license transferred to the new PC, which anyone whose had to do it will tell you is a real pain.
If it is being reinstalled in its original computer it will work.

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Ok, earlier I was thinking: your swapping of the hard-drives was similar to moving the people normally residing in House A from House A into House B, and moving the people normally residing in House B from House B into House A. I’m not sure what you are wanting to do.
Rereading your comments — maybe now I understand[?] — you’re putting HD B from computer B into computer A, while computer A’s HD remains in computer A — and wanting to copy lots and lots of programs[?] from hard-drive B onto hard-drive A — do I understand what you’re wanting to do?

"Take care of thy backups and thy restores shall take care of thee." Ben Franklin, revisted

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You can try a non destructive reinstall of 7. I would do an image AND file back up of that disk first. (Keep the WX disk aside for now, you may need a booting computer).

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

Depending on the W7 build activation may be a problem, moving an OEM install to new hardware will pose problems of another nature. You may need a valid license.

:cheers:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Trying to replace a hard drive in a Windows 10 machine with a hard drive from a functioning windows 7 machine. Thought I could just install the win 7 HD in the win 10 machine. Getting error messages and unable to start the win 10 machine with the win 7 HD. Obviously missing something Could use some help.

Not only will you almost surely have a licensing problem, but as mentioned elsewhere your Win10 era hardware may not work with an older OS. See the following comment from another thread:

Windows has basic drivers included for a surprisingly large variety of hardware so you can usually at least get off the ground. However, if you are trying to retrofit Windows 7 (or older) on new hardware you may have driver issues. More hardware all the time is being released with Windows 10 drivers only.

Image or Clone often! Backup, backup, backup, backup......
- - - - -
Home Built: Windows 10 Home 64-bit, AMD Athlon II X3 435 CPU, 16GB RAM, ASUSTeK M4A89GTD-PRO/USB3 (AM3) motherboard, 512GB SanDisk SSD, 3 TB WD HDD, 1024MB ATI AMD RADEON HD 6450 video, ASUS VE278 (1920x1080) display, ATAPI iHAS224 Optical Drive, integrated Realtek HD Audio

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Just a thought….did you reset your BIOS to have your Win 10 machine recognize the Win 7 drive?

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Resetting the BIOS is not necessary. There is nothing specific about a W7 disk that would be fixed by a reset – there is nothing specific about a W7 disk period.

cheers, Paul

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Obviously missing something

Yes, it’s unclear what you’re trying.

How many disks on the W10 PC?
Are you replacing the W10 OS disk, or its data disk, or…?
Seems clear you’re replacing with the Win7 OS disk, right?

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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Lugh,
The win 7 machine has one HD,the original. The win 10 machine has one HD, the original. I wanted to remove the win 10 HD and replace it with the win 7 HD. Store the win 10 HD for possible later use. From the answers so far, this doesn’t seem possible. Is it possible to make the win 10 machine a dual boot machine.– win 7 and win 10? Thanks for the answers so far.

Art

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…The win 10 machine has one HD, the original. I wanted to remove the win 10 HD and replace it with the win 7 HD. Store the win 10 HD for possible later use. From the answers so far, this doesn’t seem possible. Is it possible to make the win 10 machine a dual boot machine.– win 7 and win 10?…

Yes, but you would need to use a “boot manager”.

See How to Use the BCDEDIT Command Line Tool for info on how to use the Windows boot manager.

Otherwise you could use a 3rd-party boot manager, e.g.: BootIt Bare Metal

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No. Same problems as already mentioned.

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…Thought I could just install the win 7 HD in the win 10 machine. Getting error messages and unable to start the win 10 machine with the win 7 HD. Obviously missing something…

Can you give us more details of the “error messages”?

Contrary to the “no” opinions stated in other posts in this thread you should be able to get the Win7 HDD to work in the Win10 PC; many times I have fitted new motherboards to customers’ PCs after their old motherboard failed, but in such cases M$ required Windows to be re-activated.

In some cases there were problems getting Windows to boot, most often due to 3rd-party Antivirus programs, but there are ways to deal with such issues if they arise.

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Why do you want to use W7 instead of W10? I’m not a fan of the new MS way in W10, but I wouldn’t return to W7 unless I had software that specifically required W7.

cheers, Paul

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I think you could get it to work however you would want to have an image of the w7 drive before proceeding. You would want to do a sysprep of the drive after ensuring w7 had any important drivers available. This is NOT a novice operation.

That said; being a w10 disliker I still must wholeheartedly agree with Paul. I am using w10 after a short time being annoyed by w7 after leaving wxp behind with a new computer build. You may be annoyed a little but you will have an OS good (funny that word came out missing an ‘o’, mmm) for a few more years at least. Most annoyances can be addressed in less time than the learning curve would take for syspreping. Try to assure your software is compatible and secure any license #s for reinstall. Some s/w may need to be deactivated on the old computer first, usually expensive stuff like Adobe products IIRC. :cheers:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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