Can I copy the hardrive from one laptop to another?

[Chronus]

I've purchased a laptop, and it *should* be arriving on the 19th. I did this because the graphics on my old laptop is shot, and I can only see the top centimeter clearly.

The new laptop is Windows 8, while the old one is 7.

I would assume that there is a way to do this, but is there a way to make it automated? For example, crate a .bat file and run the file from a flash drive to start the transfer. Or some other way to start the transfer without being able to see exactly what I'm doing on the old laptop.

I can still use the old laptop, just without a gui to show me what I'm doing. The laptop is still under warranty, so I don't want to try opening the laptop and taking the hard drive out. I don't want to risk accidentally doing something that would void my warranty.

Or in my situation, would it be better to go somewhere and pay to have the hard drive copied from the old laptop to the new.


Once this is done, I want to do a hard drive wipe/return to default, as I don't want to hand my laptop over to be repaired with all of my personal information still on the laptop. What would be the best way of going about this. (It is likely that I will be receiving a replacement laptop of some sort, and so don't know if I will be receiving the same hard drive back or not.)

 

[DelJo63]

See this topic

 

[tipstir]

Basically what we use to do for our clients was to download and zip up:
C:\Users\Name

If you download 7z is a free zip and compression tool You could download the files you want then transfer them to the new PC.

Mostly transfer all My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, My Videos, Cookies, Favorites, Links, Downloads. Desktop Icons optional since your not going to have the same OS changing the system.

Another way you can put the other laptop on the network and then share out what you need. If the other PC is failing you might want to take either option.

 

[terry5880]

Are u sure the graphics card is gone have u tried to plug your laptop in to an external monitor and see if u get anything .. as it could be a screen problem

 

[St1ckM4n]

^-- This.

Also, opening up the laptop to replace HDD is not going to void warranty, as long as the HDD is covered by a door that is easily accessible.

 

[Chronus]

https://www.techspot.com/community/topics/sudden-graphics-issue-on-dell-laptop.195152/
This link is to my topic about what happens to my laptop. And at this point its worse, I can see less now than before, and I can't see enough to even verify what location I am on the address bar.

As for opening the laptop, to gain access to the hard drive I would have to take the keyboard off, which it is attached to the bottom of the laptop by wires. Giving me about a fingers width to work in without unclipping these wires.

 

[Chronus]

From Microsoft:

Is the GUI issue a problem with the monitor? Perhaps you could plug another monitor into the laptop to use that screen instead. If that's not possible, you might be better of trying to do this from the command prompt.

Good idea with the batch file. You can do that, or try this command to copy your entire user profile to your flash drive. You'll need to know your flash drive's letter though.

1. Login to Windows
2. Press
   
   -R, then cmd and then Enter. The command prompt will open.
3. Type the following, then press enter:
   
   xcopy %userprofile% F:\Backup /v /c /I

That will backup everything under your user profile folder (such as c:\users\skeene) to your Flash Drive (replace F with your flash drive's letter).