Is this possible

Phil.x

My newest lenovo laptop has damage to the motherboard (burnt resistor) and was told its unfixable.Can I take out the 256gb ssd and use it in this  and then plug this into another older lenovo laptop usb, that has a faulty 2.5hdd that is stuck on the blue screen and launch windows from it. Basically taking the newer ssd and connect and trying to reboot an old laptop from it, i think it's windows 11 on the ssd. https://amzn.eu/d/g98kvq4

K.O.Kiki

I don't think you can boot directly into Windows off another install & not have it be all sorts of wonky.

Better to replace the faulty 2.5" HDD with a cheap 240-512GB 2.5" SSD and just reinstall Windows on the old laptop.

Flinty997

I've seen IT depts swap windows disks between machines so many times. It's a terrible idea and the machine always ends up freaking out and crashing.

You need to reinstall windows. Do you have data on the SSD you need to get off it.?

Spear

Windows is certainly better at moving an install between machines than it used to be, but it's still a gamble. Even if it boots, there's good odds of parts of it, particularly drivers being a hotchpotch mess of bits and pieces. The odds are pretty good you'll end up with the two hosed Windows installs instead.

If the older laptop is worth rescuing, then buy a fresh drive, they're barely even €20 on Amazon.

Phil.x

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122999350#Comment_122999350

No nothing of importance, I think I'll buy a cheap 2.5ssd, do you think there will be a noticeable difference in operation.

Phil.x

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122999392#Comment_122999392

I'll probably just do that, prices have come down lots, how will I get an operating system for the new hard drive.

Spear

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122999745#Comment_122999745

You should already have a serial key on a sticker with it. Lenovo may also provide the installable images you can image onto a USB stick. If not Microsoft provide them too. In some cases Windows will auto pickup the key from the BIOS and handle that part for you too.

Flinty997

Usually MS windows install pick-up the bios. If they don't there are resellers on adverts. Pick one with lots of positive reviews.

SSD can only do so much. An old laptop is still old. But it's a cheap fix. So why not..

Coyler

You can just avoid the key altogether by choosing "I don't have a product key" during the install. I tend to avoid it during the install and until after I done some burn in tests on new builds/upgrades as they key is bound to the motherboard. Just avoiding any loss there. For second hand motherboards I usually leave it without a key for a week to a month. Microsoft used to apply restrictions to non-key use but these days its very light. You can't personalise your desktop (theme, backgrounds) and there is a watermark in the bottom right. Both a easily ignorable for a quite a while.

If you do want to activate it's a 5 second copy and paste job.

Flinty997

They've stated adding adverts to unregistered copies. Will bother some people not others. I actually use the features of the pro licenses so it worth me paying for a key. Most people won't need those features.

Phil.x

I got a new ssd, bigger ram and windows 10 installed, it's ok, it turns on fast, but you can see the screen is old compared to today's resolution and it's very heavy, these upgrades cost about 35 euro. I did have windows 11 running from it's usb, I bought the enclosure for it and it worked perfect straight away, but I didn't like running it that way with it's brain hanging out of the usb socket. It is 12 years old after all.