Windows 10: Transfer settings and files from hard drive to new machine

my mom has an old laptop windows 8, i think(but maybe 7). the battery is no good and the plug for the power cord is broken, so it does not boot. she bought a new one and would like to transfer her settings and files to the new one. my idea is to take the hard drive out of the old laptop and put it in an external enclosure and then run whatever transfer program windows comes with. but i'd like to be sure this will work before i take it apart. will it work?

submitted by /u/ofsomesort
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:)

 

exterior hard drive usable?

Hi,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community.

I suggest you to follow the below steps and check if it helps.

• Plug USB hard drive into old computer.
• Open File Explorer (Win+E) and open the USB drive.
• Open another File Explorer window and open your documents folder.
• Drag files to the USB drive.
• Move drive to new computer.
• Drag files to their new homes in the matching documents/pictures/videos/whatever folders you use to organize.

Please let us know if you have any further issues. in uploading/ transferring data.

Thanks.

 

Transferring old Hard Drive to New Computer?

Yes you'll be able to access your files no problem (from within the OS on the new hard drive). However dont count on it booting from that hard drive. The driver issues will most likely be too much, and it will just blue screen. Theres always a chance it will boot, so try it out, but its going to be a mess uninstalling all the drivers from the previous computer then installing the new ones. It wont be clean, thats for sure. Better to put the old hard drive in the new machine, back up your files to the new hard drive, then reinstall xp on the old hard drive from scratch, if you are able to do that. Ive tried transferring hard drives between computers several times, and most of the time (unless the computers are very similar hardware-wise, i.e. two dells of the same series) they just blue screen. A handful of times though, it has worked, so try it out and see.

As for the external, no it will still have the same effect, as the drivers will kill it (once again, most likely)

 

recovering files and transferring them to another internal hard drive

Hi,

To help resolve your concern, kindly follow the steps below:

• Install the 1 TB hard drive.
• Install Windows 10 operating system to the 1 TB hard drive which you added.
• Change the BIOS settings and set first boot option to the newly installed hard drive with working Windows 10 operating system (BIOS settings would differ per manufacturer. Contact your PC manufacturer for assistance on how to do this.)
• Boot to Windows 10 of newly installed hard drive. Windows 10 should see the other drive.
• Copy and paste the important files from other drive to the new one.
• Format the other drive (as needed).

You may check those files you wanted to moved under C:/Users/username.

Let us know how it goes.