Migrating the wife's computer

[bungeejumper]

Oops, brain fade. I think some of you were kind enough to give me a few pointers last year, but I could do with a reminder.

My wife's nine year old Acer desktop (Win 10) has done sterling service but it's getting very slow these days, and she does do quite a lot of Photoshopping, so it seems like a good idea to replace the machine soon. I'd like it best if I can move everything on her machine to the new one so completely that she can just sit down and everything will be where it is now. In other words, I'd like all the programs, the desktop icons and everything to transfer smoothly. Her computer has Macrium Reflect, so we should be ready to go, I think?

The replacement computer I have in mind is a two year old Asus desktop which I abandoned last November after the Western Digital hard drive failed (at only 18 months!). I was under too much work pressure to repair it at that time, so I splashed out on a new Dell, and it's been sitting there gathering dust ever since.

I have a new 2 terabyte disk drive ready to drop into it, and a USB disk caddy. I have a Windows 10 recovery disk on a USB drive. So would I be right in thinking that my first task is to do a mirror of her old drive onto the new drive, then install it in the "new" computer, then boot it up using the recovery drive, and then it should be ready to rumble after a few routine updates?

Or will I not need to use the recovery disk at all if the new drive has been mirrored to the old one? And will the mirroring duplicate the two partitions that she currently has? (A C drive and a D drive for data.) And will the Macrium format the new drive to the much smaller capacity of her old drive, and how do I stop that?

Questions, questions!

TIA

BJ

[didds]

I suspect the problem you will immediately encounter if you clone the "old HD" from the acer onto the "new HD" for the Asus is that the windows activation/genuine windows check will fail as the mobo will no longer match - I've been here before albeit not with windows 10, when swapping a "good" windows HD into another chassis because the old system's mobo died.

Somebody may have an easy way of overcoming this? I eventually was forced to give up my attempts.

didds

[ReformedCharacter]

A mirror of the old drive onto the new machine won't work well because the hardware will be different, different drivers etc. I think you will need a fresh install of Windows, reinstall software and copy files from old drive to new drive.

RC

[Breelander]

A mirror of the old drive onto the new machine won't work well because the hardware will be different, different drivers etc...

Not necessarily true, Windows 10 is very good at sorting out new drivers when the hardware changes dramatically.

The activation is the only real problem.

The replacement computer I have in mind is a two year old Asus desktop which I abandoned last November after the Western Digital hard drive failed...

What version of Windows was running on that machine? Was it Windows 10? Was it the same edition (Home or Pro) as your wife's current machine? If the answer to both is 'yes', then the intended replacement machine already has its own digital licence for W10 stored on the Microsoft activation servers. This will activate the 'clone' of the old machine.

If the replacement has a digital licence for 10 Pro, but the image you are restoring is 10 Home, then recent tests have shown that a W10 Pro digital licence will activate a W10 Home install (seems the downgrade option is permitted). Doesn't work the other way round, a 10 Home digital licence will not activate 10 Pro.

[bungeejumper]

The replacement computer I have in mind is a two year old Asus desktop which I abandoned last November after the Western Digital hard drive failed...

What version of Windows was running on that machine? Was it Windows 10? Was it the same edition (Home or Pro) as your wife's current machine? If the answer to both is 'yes', then the intended replacement machine already has its own digital licence for W10 stored on the Microsoft activation servers. This will activate the 'clone' of the old machine.

That's very encouraging, Bree, many thanks. Yes, both computers were on Windows 10 Home, although my wife's machine had been upgraded from Win 7, obviously.

TBH, it'll only be a day's worth of pain even if I do eventually have to reinstall all the software from scratch. It's all kosher stuff, and I do have all the disks. (Sigh, those were the days!) It's just that I'd prefer not to put my wife through the learning curve with a "new look" if I can possibly avoid it.

I will freely admit that my initial instinct had been to buy the missus a new computer, rather than fixing up the Asus and winging it a bit. But that was before I saw the prices of computers these days - I was thinking two hundred and something, and even the Asus with an i3 processor is the thick end of five hundred. I blame the Brexit pound, personally. But it certainly makes me appreciate what a bargain I got last November when I snapped up my i5 Dell 3000 series (ex demo, boxed and stickered and apparently never used in anger) for £199. Currys are currently asking £549 for the same machine, with just a small SSD added in...….

BJ

[quelquod]

I’ve done what you propose without any real issues, cloning a drive for a computer swap, and also done it the ‘easy’ way by just transplanting the disk(s) into the target machine. Licensing was already covered by previous 7->10 upgrades but I took a minor precaution of switching to the basic VGA driver first in case of hiccups with the graphics which I’d had before.

[ReformedCharacter]

A mirror of the old drive onto the new machine won't work well because the hardware will be different, different drivers etc...

Not necessarily true, Windows 10 is very good at sorting out new drivers when the hardware changes dramatically.

I note your caveat and I expect that Win10 is better than previous versions for driver detection etc. But would you choose to do it that way? I don't think I would, personally.

RC

[AF62]

Not necessarily true, Windows 10 is very good at sorting out new drivers when the hardware changes dramatically.

That was exactly what I found recently.

I had been using a smallish SSD in an Acer desktop and needed a larger drive, so took the old one out, installed the new blank one and put Windows back onto it.

The old one I decided to use in an old Toshiba laptop to give it a new lease of life. I thought I would have to reformat and reinstall Windows, but then went "what the hell" and put it in and fired it up. Without a blink it worked perfectly first time, and continues to do so.

The activation is the only real problem.

What version of Windows was running on that machine? Was it Windows 10? Was it the same edition (Home or Pro) as your wife's current machine? If the answer to both is 'yes', then the intended replacement machine already has its own digital licence for W10 stored on the Microsoft activation servers. This will activate the 'clone' of the old machine.[/quote]

Again can confirm, the laptop had Windows 10 on the old drive and didn't blink that new drive with Windows already on it and had been activated in a different machine, it just said "yep activated" and carried on. The desktop with the new larger SSD did the same, Windows knew it had a licence and just installed.

[ReformedCharacter]

All that said, moving a Windows installation to another computer is possible…in some cases. it requires a bit more tweaking, isn’t guaranteed to work, and generally isn’t supported by Microsoft.

https://www.howtogeek.com/239815/why-ca ... -computer/

RC

[Breelander]

Yes, both computers were on Windows 10 Home, although my wife's machine had been upgraded from Win 7, obviously.

That raises another potential issue: if the old machine is a legacy bios machine with an MBR disk but the new machine is a UEFI machine (likely, as it is a two year old machine). If that is the case you would need go into the bios on the new machine and set it up for legacy boot before restoring the image of the old machine.

Once it is up and running in legacy boot you could just leave it like that, no harm will be done. Or if you wish you can convert it to UEFI/GPT.

See this tutorial: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/815 ... -loss.html