Chances an Intel i5 latop SSD w/win10 work on a Ryzen 7 laptop without reinstall?

Oyeve

Lifer
Oct 18, 1999
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In my decades of working with systems I have moved HDs from one system to another without reinstalling the OS.

Heres the scenario. I have a gaming laptop from lenovo with e 17.3 in screen and an i5 cpu with a 4TB SSD. Its litreally falling apart as it was a refurb and I added the 4tb ssd and 16gb of ram. I ordered a new 17.3 laptop from newegg and its a Ryzen 7 3750H cpu. What are the chances that I can pop the 4tb ssd into it and it will boot at least enough to reconfigure with AMD cpu drivers? I really dont want to reinstall 3tb of programs and games. Ive done this dozens of time but its always been Intel to Intel.
 
Feb 4, 2009
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Zero point zero.
try to track down an old windows key just in case because my reinstall of windows 10 on a new machine did not work without an old key. My install was an upgrade version so your results may be different
Good news is windows 10 still installed without either old key (vista or windows 8) it just had slightly limited functions like only 3(?) things open at a time and it frequently nagged me to buy the full version.
 

Oyeve

Lifer
Oct 18, 1999
21,899
819
126
Zero point zero.
try to track down an old windows key just in case because my reinstall of windows 10 on a new machine did not work without an old key. My install was an upgrade version so your results may be different
Good news is windows 10 still installed without either old key (vista or windows 8) it just had slightly limited functions like only 3(?) things open at a time and it frequently nagged me to buy the full version.
I have keys, thats not an issue, i just dont want to install 3tb of programs. Most of my upgrades I just swap the SSD to the new system and it works, just reenter the key and install various drivers, but its always been intel to intel chips and chipsets. The new laptop will be a Ryzen.
 
Feb 4, 2009
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I have keys, thats not an issue, i just dont want to install 3tb of programs. Most of my upgrades I just swap the SSD to the new system and it works, just reenter the key and install various drivers, but its always been intel to intel chips and chipsets. The new laptop will be a Ryzen.

probably won’t be an issue in that case. I can’t promise because I’m not a windows expert but I did something very similar, used my old ssd but did a complete wipe to it before installing in the new build.
 

Oyeve

Lifer
Oct 18, 1999
21,899
819
126
Ironically, the 4tb HD I was going to take out of the Intel laptop and put in my new ryzen laptop started having problems. The Intel laptop win10 attempted to run repairs but failed. I let the new laptop install its own setup as it came with an nvme drive. I took the 4tb drive out of the Intel laptop and attached it to the new one via USB and it wouldn't come up as a drive so I deleted the partition and wiped it. I had a new wd 4tb drive and put that in the new ryzen laptop and will install apps and games from scratch to that. Going to run some tests to see if the og 4tb drive is defective. It's a Samsung 850 pro so the warranty should still be good.
 

piokos

Senior member
Nov 2, 2018
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No offense, but 3TB of software? How? Why? :D
Can you show a list of what you have? I'm really curious.

Moving the OS drive between PCs generally works on Windows10 by design - even between Intel and AMD. There's an extra layer of abstraction that covers this (it's even more obvious when you consider Hyper-V being in the middle).
That said, Windows will have to adjust, install proper updates and so on. There's always some driver mess generated in the process. Why take the risk?

Also, do you reset Windows from time to time? Do you have a backup workflow? How long would it take to get back to the state you lost?
Because if I had 3TB of software installed on my PC, I'd probably think about some automation. :D
 

Oyeve

Lifer
Oct 18, 1999
21,899
819
126
No offense, but 3TB of software? How? Why? :D
Can you show a list of what you have? I'm really curious.

Moving the OS drive between PCs generally works on Windows10 by design - even between Intel and AMD. There's an extra layer of abstraction that covers this (it's even more obvious when you consider Hyper-V being in the middle).
That said, Windows will have to adjust, install proper updates and so on. There's always some driver mess generated in the process. Why take the risk?

Also, do you reset Windows from time to time? Do you have a backup workflow? How long would it take to get back to the state you lost?
Because if I had 3TB of software installed on my PC, I'd probably think about some automation. :D
Hey, game installs are huge. Rdr2 is 120gb alone. Yes, all is backed up to a 10tb wd gold Nas system. Too bad I couldn't test if the 4tb os would work on the ryzen system as it capped out same day thr new laptop came in. Pretty sure the prior laptop killed it as components were dying one by one on that system. Lucky I had a 4tb wd blue to install my apps on. The Samsung 860 pro did reformat properly and testing says it's healthy so I'm assuming its OK. Anyway, I'm fudging the new laptop. It's an ASUS tuf gaming laptop with an Nvidia 1660 ti in it. Plus a 120hz screen. The nvme drive in it is by micron and I added the 4tb wd blue internally. So far so good. Got rdr2 completely maxxed out and it's playing great so far. Not much personal data loss as the prior laptop was only in use for about 2 months before it croaked. Never buying a refurb again!
 

piokos

Senior member
Nov 2, 2018
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Hey, game installs are huge. Rdr2 is 120gb alone.
Hmm OK, so it's games. And you don't have them delivered through some platform (Steam, GOG, Uplay)?
Earlier I assumed you're talking about the extra work involved. Because it's certainly a pain to install a lot of software manually on Windows (going through installers with dialogs etc).

Games delivered through platforms install automatically, so it's a labor-free process (albeit still quite lengthy if you have to download so many of them). Then again, since these are games, you probably don't need all of them available instantly. :D
The last retail game I bought was probably Starcraft II (around 2014-2015). Thankfully, Blizzard lets you register the key in their platform. :)

Anyway, even if I had to reinstall 50 huge games manually from DVDs, and it would take 10 evenings, that's still a dozen clicks per game once in a while.
Honestly, not a huge cost if you value OS stability highly. Windows 10 will try to fix as much as it can, but it'll never be as clean as a new installation. And if you do this a few times with the same instance...

Even if you don't see any obvious errors on the screen, doesn't mean Windows isn't struggling in the background - patching conflicts on the fly. So it may cost you in performance or boot times. :)
 
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Oyeve

Lifer
Oct 18, 1999
21,899
819
126
Hmm OK, so it's games. And you don't have them delivered through some platform (Steam, GOG, Uplay)?
Earlier I assumed you're talking about the extra work involved. Because it's certainly a pain to install a lot of software manually on Windows (going through installers with dialogs etc).

Games delivered through platforms install automatically, so it's a labor-free process (albeit still quite lengthy if you have to download so many of them). Then again, since these are games, you probably don't need all of them available instantly. :D
The last retail game I bought was probably Starcraft II (around 2014-2015). Thankfully, Blizzard lets you register the key in their platform. :)

Anyway, even if I had to reinstall 50 huge games manually from DVDs, and it would take 10 evenings, that's still a dozen clicks per game once in a while.
Honestly, not a huge cost if you're expecting you value OS stability highly. Windows 10 will try to fix as much as it can, but it'll never be as clean as a new installation. And if you do this a few times with the same instance...

Even if you don't see any obvious errors on the screen, doesn't mean Windows isn't struggling in the background - patching conflicts on the fly. So it may cost you in performance or boot times. :)
Well, I had to do a clean install on the 4tb wd drive so all is well. I usually keep my main games backed up so I can just copy them and tell the installers their locations. Patching is much quicker that reinstalls.
 

piokos

Senior member
Nov 2, 2018
554
206
86
Well, I had to do a clean install on the 4tb wd drive so all is well. I usually keep my main games backed up so I can just copy them and tell the installers their locations. Patching is much quicker that reinstalls.
You're backing up whole directories of installed games?
I'm surprised this even works on Windows 10 - with actual files usually spread over many locations.
You fix windows registry manually or you somehow back it up as well?
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,387
5,255
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In my decades of working with systems I have moved HDs from one system to another without reinstalling the OS.

Heres the scenario. I have a gaming laptop from lenovo with e 17.3 in screen and an i5 cpu with a 4TB SSD. Its litreally falling apart as it was a refurb and I added the 4tb ssd and 16gb of ram. I ordered a new 17.3 laptop from newegg and its a Ryzen 7 3750H cpu. What are the chances that I can pop the 4tb ssd into it and it will boot at least enough to reconfigure with AMD cpu drivers? I really dont want to reinstall 3tb of programs and games. Ive done this dozens of time but its always been Intel to Intel.

Easier way is just to use Macrium ReDeploy, or a similar tool:


Procedure is pretty simple:

1. Use Macrium to make a backup image of your old PC (full digital copy of your HDD) to a USB backup drive
2. Use the Macrium CD to boot up the new PC & restore the image of your old PC to your new PC (the WinPE Rescue CD has a stripped-down generic universal boot system)
3. Walk through the "redeploy to new hardware" procedure in the link listed above. It's not always perfect & it will probably take some finagling, but this way you can clone over all of the data from your old rig, get it booting on the new rig, and then run whatever Windows Updates & manually install whatever drivers that Macrium doesn't tag for you (this is usually pretty minimal)