Windows 10: Clone old laptop to new Laptop?

Question: Could I with Data Migration clone my old laptop (win 10 installed & updated), and install it in a new laptop I am thinking of buying? As always your thoughts most appreciated.

:)

 

Cloning a hard drive from one laptop to a new laptop

Are you referring to a system drive, as in cloning a system drive from your previous laptop to your new laptop so that your new laptop will have the same OS and installed programs? If this is the case, you're going to run into major problems, as in it probably
won't work, not only because of the Windows license, but also because the old drive is set up to run on your old laptop, not the new one.

Cloning a system drive normally refers to either cloning for a backup, or cloning a system drive to a new drive that is going to go into the same laptop, like if you are upgrading to an SSD or upgrading to a larger size drive.

 

Cloning an external HDD

Hello community,

I just bought a new laptop and I was wondering if I clone my old laptop HDD (right now I am using that as external HDD) connected to my new PC. My idea is to clone this old HDD into my new laptop so I can use all my data and installed software, is that possible?

Thanks for your help.

PS. Both are with windows 10, my old laptop was HP and now I got Asus.

Moved from: [Windows / Windows 10 / Windows update, recovery, & backup]

 

You can, but I'm not a fan of doing so. New hardware means a chance to load the new drivers and new apps, without bringing along anything old and unused. You also know where your data is stored, so trusting software to figure it out isn't the best idea. Also, the activation wouldn't follow to the new computer, so you would need to have an additional key or upgradeable key to use.

For the best results, get the new laptop and upgrade it to 10. Once it is working well, wipe it out, do a clean install of 10, and then move your data over to the new one.

 

Also, any programs that you have a single license for like Microsoft Office would have to be uninstalled on the old laptop before being used on the new laptop.

While I, personally, agree with DeaconFrost, I can tell you my experience with moving Windows 10. My father-in-law (FIL) had an old computer that we upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10. I had a desktop computer which was also upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10. I built myself a new computer, and my old desktop was an upgrade to my FIL's old computer. I simply took the hard drive out of his old computer, put it in my old desktop and all the drivers for the "new" computer installed just fine. Since both computer had already had a digital entitlement for Windows 10, there was no problem with activation either.

My situation was a little bit different, obviously, but Windows 10 is very tolerant of being moved from computer to computer.

What I would do is network the two laptops together. Install Macrium Reflect Free on both. Make an image of the old laptop, saving the image to the new laptop over the network, then use Macrium Reflect Free on the new laptop to mount and explore the image from the old laptop to transfer all your files over. That way you are certain to not lose anything in the transfer. Once you are absolutely certain you have everything you want from the old laptop copied out of the image file, then you can just delete the image file. An external storage location for the image file such as a network attached storage or external hard drive is even better because it won't take up space on the new computer.

 

Must admit, I have done clean installs on two PC's & one laptop from scratch with no problem what so ever, so was really being lazy, and having a spare Maxtor 250gig SSD, but hand on heart I know you are right about loading bios for motherboards & drivers for various things, anyway cheers for your input.