Can I Move My Hard Drive to a New Computer and Have Windows Work?

✔️ In general, the answer is no, it will not work. But sometimes it does. And sometimes it’s something in between.

Can I move my hard drive?
Since Windows Setup configures Windows to the specific hardware on your machine, moving a hard disk from one machine to another and expecting Windows to work is risky. Windows will try to update itself in the face of what it sees as a massive change, but the results are not guaranteed. Your best approach with a new machine is to reinstall Windows from scratch and allow Windows Setup to do its job properly.

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Chapters
0:00 Move my hard drive?
0:25 Don't count on it
0:56 Setup configures Windows to the hardware
1:52 Windows tries to re-configure to hardware changes
2:45 Everything changes when you move a hard drive
3:56 Three possibilities
5:00 It’s not worth the risk
5:42 What to do with the old drive
6:38 Data recovery

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