Moving boot drive to new PC, any chance this working?

Jon_01

Ok, so I have a mate who has no clue where computers are concerned.

He's a mini PC that's 5 years old and fails the W11 test (I know there are other ways to install W11, but that's not an option).

He's bought a new mini PC which is W11 compatible.

The problem is, he has no idea what his passwords are, what his Office key is or even what his own email login info is... and he expects me to go over there and get his new PC to work like his old one!

Now, I know it's not a good idea to move the boot drive, but if I remove his old drive and put it in the new PC, is there any chance it'll boot just the once and then update to W11 and install the new drivers for the new hardware?   I have checked and as far as I can tell, the old drive should be compatible with the new machine...

The other option is to image his boot drive to the new PC, but then I lose the valid W11 install if it doesn't work...

LilSmiler

Moving the physical drive and imaging it will have the same outcome. You're likely to get BSOD with incompatible drivers for the chipset, display and probably need a bitlocker key unless that's been disabled at some point..

If he knows his logon PW you could log onto the current mini PC and uninstall the drivers first and suspend bitlocker then try to move the drive.. hopefully synchronise the browser account and online PWs if they've been using Edge or Chrome as their preferred browser

Vitor

Driver issues, Secure Boot/UEFI issues, OEM W10 license is linked to the hardware, TPM and BitLocker complications...slamming the old disk into the new mini-PC is very unlikely to get the result you want.

If he logs into the W10 machine with a Microsoft account (and ideally is using OneDrive) then logging into the W11 with the credentials should at least sync some settings, Store apps and files.

vacheron

Moving the boot drive is a recipe for disaster. There are tools to reset Windows for a transfer over to new hardware, but the risk is that if you move the drive, the new PC may begin to write changes to this, and then not work anyway with the risk that that the drive will then no longer work in EITHER machine!   

The most risk free soution would be for him to keep running the 2 PC's in parallel, using the credential managers on the old PC to recover each password he doesn't know until he is satisfied that he has pretty much everything he needs. Then stick the old PC in a cupboard for a couple of years "just in case". (at least it is small)!

This long winded process may also convince him to use a decent password manager in future! 

If he is using an older (non subscription) office licence, then I beleive there are apps to recover the office installation keys. Failing that, just get a new licence from CDKeys of elsewhere for a few quid.

debitcardmayhem

run belarc advisor on his old pc https://www.belarc.com/products/belarc-advisor

his passwords should be stored in his browser, email client etc.
also there is produkey from nirsoft 

MattMattMattUK

It pretty much only works on identical hardware, I have done it in a work environment where a bunch of PCs were the same exact spec and I have managed to do it on occasion with different but similar hardware. In the case of the latter it threw up a lot of issues but was enough to get to safe mode to be able to extract what was needed whilst a new PC was being set up, but that was all in the days before Secure Boot which renders successfully moving a boot drive almost impossible. 

debitcardmayhem said:

run belarc advisor on his old pc https://www.belarc.com/products/belarc-advisor

his passwords should be stored in his browser, email client etc.
also there is produkey from nirsoft 

I second this, Belarc is great. 

Away from that I would say there is no point in being tech support for people that are unwilling to help themselves, it becomes a never ending uphill battle where they seem to get worse and you end up doing more and more. 

grumpycrab

Jon_01 said:

...he has no idea what his passwords are, what his Office key is or even what his own email login info is... 

is it really his PC?  Assuming it doesn't have a password itself (you imply it doesn't) then as said.... Belarc to find Office key (assuming he's not using it as part of Office 365 subscription);  if he uses webmail then his email password may be stored in the browser otherwise it'll need resetting. 
If his current hard drive has loads of data on it then could move that disk over to the new PC but definitely not as boot drive.

Jon_01

grumpycrab said:

Jon_01 said:

...he has no idea what his passwords are, what his Office key is or even what his own email login info is... 

is it really his PC?  Assuming it doesn't have a password itself (you imply it doesn't) then as said.... Belarc to find Office key (assuming he's not using it as part of Office 365 subscription);  if he uses webmail then his email password may be stored in the browser otherwise it'll need resetting. 
If his current hard drive has loads of data on it then could move that disk over to the new PC but definitely not as boot drive.

Yes, I know how that looks!!!  I've known him for over 40 years, he's always been like this. This is a guy who only switches on his mobile phone when he wants to make a call, and then can't understand why is doesn't ring when it's not on... I'm being serious.    He managed to unplug his landline from the wall and I had to go over there to plug it back in because he couldn't work out that he had to flip the catch up before he could put the plug back in...

Anyway, the PC has a password, but the recovery email is to a domain that no longer exists.

I've found Belarc, so that's going to be a help.

Email is on Outlook. No clue what the password is. He set it up years ago, say he 'May have written it down at the time' but now has no idea where that might be.  And he also wants all the info from Outlook moving to the new PC.  But can't tell me what version of Office he's using.

I can only think that I did something truly evil in a past life, and this is my penance...

Vitor

When PC Support becomes Care in the Community...

Jon_01

Vitor said:

When PC Support becomes Care in the Community...

My wife does refer to me as his carer...

HillStreetBlues

MattMattMattUK said:

It pretty much only works on identical hardware, I have done it in a work environment where a bunch of PCs were the same exact spec and I have managed to do it on occasion with different but similar hardware. In the case of the latter it threw up a lot of issues but was enough to get to safe mode to be able to extract what was needed whilst a new PC was being set up, but that was all in the days before Secure Boot which renders successfully moving a boot drive almost impossible. 

My outcome was  totally different
HP Desktop to Toshiba Laptop,  Windows did have to update drivers. HP Desktop to Lenovo Netbook I had to update drivers. Only issue was getting Windows to activate.  This was for both Win 10 & 11