DL
Mon Jul 07 11:32:11 PDT 2008
You can use the tool usually freely available on the hd manufacturers site
to clone the old drive to the new drive.
Or you can use a third party tool such as Acronis.
Whether the installation taken from one laptop and cloned to a drive to be
used on another laptop will work is debateable, even if they are both Dells.
"traumajohn" <traumajohn@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:D53F49AB-08C3-4666-A069-69E0F39DF7F9@microsoft.com...
> Sorry about the wordy or lack of correct words I used. The laptop with
> bad
> display I tested the hard drive and it is okay. It is also the one that
> has
> all the programs that I want and need to keep. The second laptop, the
> drive
> won't boot up to windows and I get a missing hal.dll message. I am unable
> to
> find the reinstall disk and the drives are the same. I made a mistake
> earlier
> in that the 2 laptops are both Dell's. I have a spare hard drive that
> works
> in both laptops and wonder how I can do like you saide an image from the
> hdd
> of the good drive to the other working drive.
> Thanks for bearing with me.
> John
>
> "Shenan Stanley" wrote:
>
>> traumajohn wrote:
>> > I have 2 laptops. One just fell and the display went bad but hard
>> > drive is good and the other has my programs that I want. It has xp
>> > home. The second laptop hard drive is now corrupt. First laptop is
>> > a Toshiba and the second is a Dell. I want to put the Toshiba drive
>> > into the Dell and have it work like that. Am I going to have any
>> > problems with that? Or if I reinstall xp on the corrupt drive is
>> > there a way to copy all my programs files and settings from the
>> > other drive onto the newly installed drive. Like a drive copy or
>> > something so I get everything from one onto the other. I will
>> > reformat the other drive so programs are only on one drive.
>>
>> <snipped>
>>
>> traumajohn wrote:
>> > I thought there was a way to do a drive copy when changing to a new
>> > or larger hard drive. Drive copy or ghost or something like that.
>>
>> First - your story is a bit confusing...
>>
>> Your Toshiba laptop has a bad display - but as far as you know - a good
>> hard
>> disk drive. It has all the applications on it that you would desire to
>> utilize.
>>
>> Your Dell laptop has a 'corrupt' hard disk drive. You really do not
>> explain
>> what that means. Is the hardware physically bad or did things just get
>> really scrambled by poor management?
>>
>> Here's the issues you have - assuming that both drives are physically
>> fit.
>>
>> 1) Are they the same type of drive? Just because they are both in
>> laptops
>> does not automatically mean they are physically interchangeable.
>>
>> 2) The Toshiba install is - per the license - stuck on the Toshiba
>> laptop.
>> Same for the Dell. That is part of the End User license Agreement - as
>> they
>> will both likely be OEM copies of Windows XP.
>>
>> 3) The software (applications) and hardware drivers on the Toshiba
>> install
>> are *for the Toshiba*. The drivers certainly will not work, the
>> applications (many of them - especially those specific to the laptop
>> itself)
>> may not work.
>>
>> 4) Did they both have the same flavor of Windows XP (Home, Professional,
>> etc) installed upon them?
>>
>> From a strictly technical standpoint...
>>
>> While it is possible you could take the hard disk drive out of the
>> Toshiba
>> (if it is of the same type and fits) and change the BIOS settings to the
>> new
>> drive settings, perform a repair installation with an actual Windows XP
>> installation CD (fixing the hardware driver issues somewhat), install the
>> latest hardware drivers from Dell, uninstall the Toshiba specific
>> applications, change the Windows XP Product key from the Toshiba provided
>> one to the Dell provided one and be 'so-so' in the clear. Technically -
>> however - if the programs came installed on the Toshiba (Office, etc) -
>> they
>> may be licensed for an install on the Toshiba and nothing else.
>>
>> It is also possible you could image the drives and instead of
>> flip-flopping
>> the physical hardware, simply apply the images in a way that works the
>> same
>> and do everything after the physical hard disk drive swap I mentioned in
>> the
>> last paragraph and end up in the same boat as previously described.
>>
>> However - to stay 100% within your rights per every conceivable
>> limitation,
>> you should replace the hard disk drive in the Dell with whatever you want
>> (or one that is fully functional (if the one in it is not)) and use the
>> Dell
>> installation method to restore it to the as-purchased state and then - if
>> you have the installation media and transferrable licenses for the
>> programs
>> you wish to utilize - install them on the fresh install of the Dell and
>> go
>> from there.
>>
>> What you cannot do - in accordance with the EULA - is move the license
>> from
>> the Toshiba laptop to anything else. The product key for the Toshiba
>> laptop
>> is specific to that installation. If it cannot be used on that system -
>> it
>> canot be transferred anywhere else. System dies - too bad - you will
>> have
>> to buy a new license of Windows XP if you wish ot use it elsewhere.
>>
>> --
>> Shenan Stanley
>> MS-MVP
>> --
>> How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
>>
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
>>
>>
>>