traumajohn said:
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>
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.
