Windows 10: Swap Fresh Windows 7 SSD into Windows 10 Laptop >> Possible?

Hi guys,

I have a quick (trick) question.

Let's say I have a brand new Windows 10 laptop which came with an HDD. Let's say that this laptop is UEFI-based and it proved to be locked up by the manufacturer, meaning that I am unable to disable Secure Boot and enable Legacy Boot. For this reason, I was unable to install Windows 7 on the stock HDD using a bootable USB.

Now assume that I clone Windows 7 from my desktop onto a brand new SSD. And I purchase a valid Windows 7 license key. The question is...

Would it be possible to pull the HDD out of the laptop and make the Windows 7 SSD run on it?

Thanks for the feedback.

:)

 

swapping hard drive between 2 computer

Hi all,

i have 2 laptop i running windows 10 pro - laptop 1: running the 32bit, has 960gb ssd drive - main comp, laptop 2 running windows 7 ultimate 64 bits, has 250gb ssd, want to do the swap ssd drive so that the larger ssd drive can be use in laptop2, because
i want the use the larger ssd drive in the newer latptop (laptop 2) and also want to keep all the programs i have on there without having to go through all the installation and reconfigure everything again.i thought i could just swap the ssd drive between
to 2 com (because laptop has better hardware and specs than laptop 1) ,

while laptop 2 startup and run fine after the swapping to the larger ssd drive but i got message saying i need to activate windows 10 pro. swapping the drives back and both laptops works fine with their own drive and windows version.

my question is if i am to also upgrade laptop 2 to windows 10 pro, can i just simply swapping the hard drive with laptop or would the system still ask me to activate windows 10 pro again???

if swapping the drive between the laptops won't work at all then what is the best method to get achieve what i want without have to copy all docs/files i need from 960gb ssd drive to an external drive then do a fresh windows installation on the 960 while
it is in the laptop 2 then transfer the files from external drive to it a again?

please help

thanks

 

Windows 10 removes data from system partition that was copied from another Windows 7!

Hi,

I had the following experience with Windows 10 (Pro and Home) on several systems with the same behavior.

Laptop with brand new SSD and Windows 10 Home installed on it.

--> Because the personal data on the old hdd was recovered to an workstation Windows 7 PC I wanted to make my life easier and plugged in the SSD to the Workstation.

-->copied about 100GB data to the SSD

--> put the SSD back into the laptop

--> Windows 10 was booting

--> But the data was not accessible, explorer told me "missing permissions" or "file is not available" .....

--> After reboot, the folder with the data was removed and the SSD had 100GB more space available.

I tried this several times and sometimes after first boot, chkdsk came up and fixed some errors.

Same happened with another PC ....all files that where copied to the system partition of Windows 10 are gone after booting that Windows 10!

I want to understand why Windows 10 has this behavior and how to disable it.

Appreciate some help,

Vita

 

That is the only item where it stops. Windows 7 will not support secure boot.

If you can manage to disable secure boot, and the windows 7 license is a retail license, IMHO the rest will not be a problem.

Legacy BIOS is not needed to install Windows 7 (64 bit at least), it works with UEFI very nicely. UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 7 with - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

OK. Well, since secure boot cannot be disabled. The answer is clear then. Thanks Arc.

And by the way, I am issuing a warning to everyone buying a PROFESSIONAL Windows 10 laptop from HP (such as a ProBook). These laptops' BIOS are totally locked up. And although the BIOS is branded HP, Customer Support denied any intervention on the software, claiming that it is not within HP's responsibility. I assume that Microsoft is making them enforce this policy.

Basically, what you will be offered if you want to install a different OS is to return the laptop (I kid you not) and to exchange it for a retail version. So please, don't waste hours of your life trying to disable Secure Boot to install Windows 7 like I did. It is impossible.

 

I think the policy of locking up the BIOS by the OEM manufacturers is a real PITA for the users.

Sometimes a BIOS update may reduce the degree/level of the locking up. But the user should have the liberty to use the OS that he wants.