Use of old Laptop HDD with new Laptop

Doublespresso

I am about to start using a new laptop and I was considering taking the internal HDD from my old laptop, put it inside an enclosure with a USB and plug it into the new laptop, thus making it an external drive.

My question is whether I'd be able to use al my old files and applications as before or not...

Obviously the old drive will have the OS (windows XP pro) which will not be used, but will it work?

...oh and a second question.. as my new laptop will have Windows XP Home edition, is there a way I can instal my old XP pro in the new laptop?

OneADay

The disk will work for data storage but you will have plenty of trouble trying to boot from that disk. With a boot manager installed on the main laptop hard disk and with a laptop capable of booting from usb hdd, possibly you could get it to boot once in a blue moon.

Just use the old disk as a storage device. Your old apps etc all virtually redundent.

Doublespresso

OneADay wrote: »

The disk will work for data storage but you will have plenty of trouble trying to boot from that disk. With a boot manager installed on the main laptop hard disk and with a laptop capable of booting from usb hdd, possibly you could get it to boot once in a blue moon.

Just use the old disk as a storage device. Your old apps etc all virtually redundent.

Is there a way that I can continue to use applications such as Outlook Express in the same way as before (from the old HDD and without having to import/export all the settings) given that the same program is installed on both HDDs?

almillar

Short answer - no. Outlook Express should have an export setting if you can still use it on the old computer. Otherwise have a google for outlook express personal data file or something and you may be able to copy them all over. It installs by default with Windows XP so no need to worry about reinstalling.
If your new lappy has a license for XP Home, and has XP Home installed, and the old one has a license for Pro, and has Pro installed, I would just leave it like that unless you have a specific reason why you need Pro. 'Pro is better' is not a specific reason ;-)
Home and Pro keys don't work for each other.

vaio

If you are planning on using the old disc then i guess you are not going to sell the old laptop so you can use the old XP pro licence on your new machine if you want to.

Doublespresso

vaio wrote: »

If you are planning on using the old disc then i guess you are not going to sell the old laptop so you can use the old XP pro licence on your new machine if you want to.

How do I do this? I only have rescue discs for the old machine.
thanks

vaio

If the rescue discs don't work then you'll have to borrow or download an XP disc and install it using the key from your old laptop.

Doublespresso

thanks for all the answers so far.

Would I be able to boot from the old HDD and work on the new computer as if I were on working on my old machine?

Any recommendations of a boot manager and how best to use it?

Garetha

Doublespresso wrote: »

thanks for all the answers so far.

Would I be able to boot from the old HDD and work on the new computer as if I were on working on my old machine?

Any recommendations of a boot manager and how best to use it?

If you were to boot from the old drive all the drivers installed would be the wrong ones - it would be a mess. You'd then need to change all the drivers to suit the new hardware - there should be a disk with the new machine.

Doublespresso

Yes, I have a drivers disk with the new machine.
How do I go about updating the drivers on the old HDD to suit the new machine?
What about the boot manager?
Thanks

almillar

Doublespresso, unless you really know what you're doing, you should do a fresh install of Windows, drivers and applications, then copy over your data (in that order too). It's far far too messy to move Windows installation from 1 computer to another, it'll be far faster to start fresh.
As I said, you've got a properly licensed version of XP Home, and unless you've got a really good reason that I've missed, you should stick with that. Pro is unlikely to be any better for most people.