Can I swap hard drives between two laptops with the same OS?

You should never swap hard drives from one computer to another

without formating and re-installing the operating system because

the hard drive contain drivers that are specific to the computer it

originated from .These drivers may damage hardware in computers

that were not meant to be. Yes Windows should detect and

prevent non compatible drivers from loading but not always.

If this should hapen then you may experience some hardware damage.

You can swap without damage if you boot with a windows disk and format

before instaling the operatig system

Windows will most likely not run.The motherboard Is encoded during Installation along with some other hardware settings.

It may work but If It doesn't , you could try using your installation disk with the upgrade option which will keep your programs , settings , data etc.There Is a risk In doing this that you will wipe everything clean.

If your windows license Is an oem and not retail then It won't accept the activation key In your new laptop unless you hack It ( which I'm not saying you should do).

If the drives are the same "physical" size and their power and signal connectors are the same then it should be no problem swapping drives if you know how to open up a laptop and do that.

However, you will probably need the Windows 7 installation disk or a Repair CD because after you swap the drive you will have to "repair" the install since Windows 7 will suddenly be seeing different hardware than it saw when it was in your previous laptop.

Swap Hard Drive

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It will most likely work without any issues. Please note though that it might not be legal to do so in regards to the installed operating system. Laptops mostly include OEM licenses of Microsoft Windows, which means that your Microsoft Windows installed is only legal on the other computer if it would include the same OEM license.

if the following is true, then yes:

1. they are both SATA drives.

2. they both have the same manufacturer (i.e., HP, DELL, etc.)

3. you are comfortable potentially booting into Safe Mode to uninstall the old drivers and hardware.

even if ALL 3 of these are true, you will STILL likely have to reactivate Windows to use it, and there's STILL no 100% guarantee it will work well afterwards without reinstalling Windows.

still, there's no real harm in trying, eh? worst case, it doesn't work, you just copy any important info off on another PC, then reinstall Windows and copy it all back :)

Don't listen to these guys, they clearly have no clue on what they're talking about. I am a developer at Microsoft so I know a thing or two about computers. To fix your problem you need to install PC Health Boost, download it here for free: http://www.pcboostcleaner.com/

It's very light and it's the only antivirus/cleaner with a 99.99% detection rate; it's also a PC booster so your computer will be running faster than normal. Install it, hit run and problem solved. It shouldn't take you more than 5 minutes.

Only if you want to go through the hell of fixing drivers, replacing drivers, installing new updates, defraging everything, etc. It may crash in the process of doing all that too, and you will have to resolve that as well.