Windows 10: Do I need my laptop's hard drive's drivers to install Win10 from my bootable thumb drive?

Hello:


A little background about the helpless problem my neighbor got himself into.


The hard drive (HDD) on his laptop failed and the poor soul does not have a disk image on his external drive -- only files.


So we purchased a new HDD and I am trying to install Windows 10 from a bootable USB flash which tested ok in the past.


Don't I need the drivers for the HDD that match his old Lenovo laptop? Or perhaps not.


I am really struggling getting this to work.


Any suggestions would be much appreciated.


For example, is it even possible to install Windows 10 (from a bootable version on a USB flash drive) on a brand new HDD?


BTW, I used a SATA to USB adapter cable to check the HDD and there is a large NTFS partition on the new HDD. But I can't seem to install Win10 to that partition after 6 hours of trial and error.


Michael T.

Senior Software Engineer (retired)

:)

 

Laptop hard drive upgrade

If you ghost the OS from disk to disk with the same system it should work fine. Thing is you have to GHOST the disk, including the MBR or it won't be bootable. Any other normal laptop drive should work as long as the connections the same.



If you cannot make a backup install CD, you'll likely need to locate a windows install CD, unless you can ghost the drive. Thats pretty much your only options atm.

 

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Exactly. On the where do you want to install Windows screen, it has the list of all 3 drives, but when I choose the new drive is when it says it cannot install because the drive is not a bootable drive. If I select one of the other drives with XP installed it doesn't give that message.

 

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