Computer geek help?

[Schema Thing]

I have a new, presumably good-working-order 1terabyte hard drive, with 64 bit Windows Vista loaded, from an HP computer that I purchased cheap (125 bucks) because the case has been badly smooshed by an errant forklift.


I have a 1.5 year old HP computer with a bad hard drive, that had been running Vista (but not Vista 64).


The smooshed computer had a Pentium E6300 chip, and the computer with the bad hard drive has an Athlon 64x2.


Is it possible to just plug the new 1T hard drive into the old computer and have it boot up with it's installed Vista 64?

I suspect not. Is there a way to use the new operating system on my old computer?

(I don't have any hope of recovering my data or anything from the old computer - I've already tried that and any further options are a lot of money)


Any advice appreciated.

[Schema Thing]

1. anyone? anyone?

[PJPhreak]

2. Have fun fussing with the drivers...But it should work nt

[ghostsofgiants]

3. If the old computer has a 64-bit processor it should work.

Might be tricky, as those things can be sometimes, but I don't see why it owuldn't work.

[scheming daemons]

4. This tech support cheat sheet might help you

[ghostsofgiants]

5. One of my favourite xkcd strips in a while.

[Q3JR4]

10. ....

:rofl:

Q3JR4.
The story of my life.

[mwooldri]

6. Physically possible.

Both chips are 64 bit processors, so both can run Vista 64.

Whether Vista will like it seeing a change in all the components is another matter. Worst case scenario is a call to Microsoft to re-activate Vista.

If the case is smooshed and the other computer HDD is dead, how about stripping out all the innards of both computers and put the innards of the smooshed case computer into the case of the good case? I don't know without inspecting if it can be done - it's HP to HP after all so it may be easier... alternatively a new case - starting at about $25 and up may be viable too. With the investment of a new case and a new hard drive for the "old" computer, you can have two good computers again.

Seriously, it will not hurt to plug the drive from the smooshed computer into the computer with the bad hard drive. Worst case is that it won't work. Just doing that doesn't wreck a hard drive on its own. Smashing it with a hammer repeatedly is something else though... that will wreck a hard drive, so treat them with care...

mark.

[Schema Thing]

7. thanks

the motherboard is mangled on the new one.

So I've tried plugging it in, and it won't boot up Vista. Says there may have been a recent hardware change, lol.

[Angleae]

8. I just did that very thing (Intel E6750 to AMD Phenom II)

BSOD city, incompatable drivers. Had to reinstall from scratch. Intel/Nvidia doesn't get along with AMD/ATI.

Come to think of it, several years ago when I went from AMD to Intel it did the same thing. But going Intel to Intel worked just fine.

[Duer 157099]

9. In some rare cases, it's possible

I've been lucky to have it work for me once.

The main problem is at a very basic level, at the boot level, there's something called the "HAL" or hardware abstraction layer, which basically has all your hardware info, and *that* is where the boot will fail if you try running just any old hard drive with an OS on a foreign box.

(fyi: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_abstraction_layer)

There are ways to hack into this, but it takes some pretty sophisticated trickery, not for the faint of heart.

I mean, if you could somehow rescue some of the boot files (eg, the Hal, etc) from the old drive and transfer them to the new drive, that could possibly do it. But again, it takes a certain level of sophistication

Which parts, specifically, of the smooshed computer are completely toast? If you can swap out just some of the parts, you might get it to work. Just depends on how different they are.

PS: there's tons of hope to recover the data on your old hard drive, I've never met a drive that I couldn't recover data from. Ever. Sometimes using just freeware, or very inexpensive software. It takes time and committment, though, but rest assured, it's doable.

[Schema Thing]

11. Thanks for the advice

yeah, I think level of sophistication it would take, if even possible, is way above my paygrade. I gave it a college try, and it said "er, what?" :)

[City of Mills]

12. If it were XP, i'd say no.

Vista has much better cross-platfrom HAL support so it's possible it will work.