harddrive transfer to new laptop

londonTiger

Hi

I have bought a refurb laptop to replace my knackered old laptop. The refurb has win7 pro on a standard mechanical hard drive.

The knackered laptop has a crucial m4 SSD. I want to migrate the drive and data onto the new laptop. Though there is a mismatch, the current laptop has windows 10 home on it and cannot just replace the license key.

Just wondering what would be the best way to migrate the drive onto the new lappy. I have already booted up the new laptop with my old SSD drive and managed to log into Windows. However I was not able to enter a new license key (from the base of the unit as the drive has windows 10 home on it and the serial on the new lappy is a pro version).

As I understnd it these OEM licenses are only meant to stay with the hardware so cannot be registered to the respective devices, so I need use the corrosponding license with each laptop.

Is there a trouble free way to convert a windows10 home to windows 10 pro, and then activate the serial?

pappa_golf

well lots of ways here , but the chances of the chipset being the same etc etc will be slim.


in this position I would do the following


1:back up all data from the SSD using old laptop and media
2: start new laptop
3: goto here https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 and upgrade the new laptop with the old drive in it


when its upgraded and registered , check which version and if 32/64 bit
4: go back to the pager (above) scroll down to "create media" and "burn" a disk/pendrive


5: replace mechanical drive with SSD , boot with pandrive/disk , delete all partitions and do a clean install

londonTiger

the update proceduire has changed, you no longer need to a manual upgrade to windows 7 to 10. You can clean install in Windows 10 and enter your win7 key.

I do not want to clean install. I have shortcuts, email clients etc all setup. I want to convert the windows 10 home to windows 10 pro somehow and enter the key of the new laptop.

As stated I have been able to just do a drive transfer onto the new laptop and actually log in and use the new laptop, albet a few error messages because startup has software specfic to previous machine and which will be fixed by uninstalls . I have reverted back because the windows 7 pro license and windows 10 home installation mismatch. The error messages state dthis was specifically due to the pro/home issue and nothing to do with the fact the it's windows7/10

People upgrade motherboards on desktop machines all the time, OS can detect when hardware has changed and install new drivers for them and remove old.

pappa_golf

once installed , you can only change one WIN 10 key with another WIN 10 key , you cannot use a win7 or 8 key

however if you upgrade the new laptop , you will then have a licence key for the system that is (or will be) locked to that motherboard , perhaps you can install that ser no when you refit the ssd

regarding the upgrade , by using a clean method and entering the ser No , all well and good , hopefully that is the ser No that was used on THAT machine and not others

londonTiger

I just went ahead and upgraded the windows 7 pro laptop to windows 10 pro.

I was able to "upgrade" the windows 10 home installation onto windows 10 pro using info on this link: http://www.zdnet.com/article/going-pro-how-to-upgrade-windows-10-home-without-hassles/

When doing the windows 10 home to windows 10 pro conversion it deactivates the license so all you have to do is enter the serial printed on the sticker of the destination laptop and job done.

just uninstalled all the trackpad drivers/software for previos motherboard and everything is fine.