Solved I need some advice... how would you do this?

I have a 2ish-year-old HP Pavilion Laptop (15-eg0070wm) that has upgraded RAM and M.2 SSD drive (32GB and 2TB respectively)... I dropped the laptop by accident a few weeks ago and ended up with a roughly 6" (15.24cm) scratch on it... it's not too bad and not overly noticeable (most of the time) but the system fan sounds like a Jet Engine 70-90% of the time now and the screen has shut itself off without warning a few times (making me hold the power button until I kill it to start it again). The RAM and SSD upgrades weren't that long ago so I figured I could buy a new laptop where those are compatible and save money. Buying say a system with 8GB of RAM and use mine instead (same with Hard Drive). I found a nice Dell Inspiron system where the above are both compatible and happened to be talking to a friend who said he had a Dell computer he doesn't use (it's the Latitude [Business] version of the same system I was looking at). He shipped me the laptop from Canada and I got it today.

Now, here's my dilemma... I have WAY too much software/files/etc on my HP that I have to keep... I have Macrium Reflect installed and have full backups on my NAS. I uninstalled all HP-specific stuff from the laptop and debated if I should just stick the drive into the Dell and hope the drivers sort themselves out. Maybe do an in-place upgrade of Windows after the fact to see if that helps/fixes anything and just continue like nothing happened? I had thought about dump the 2TB drive, install a fresh Windows 11 on it, and than restore the backup, but I assume that would carry over any of the problems I'd have doing a direct drive swap would and just waste extra time.

Being the Dell is a Latitude and not an Inspiron I assume it was Windows 10/11 Pro and not Home... my HP is 11 Pro... between the two systems, there are 2 licenses already, but I'm willing to buy a new Windows 11 Pro if I have to.

How would you guys go about this to keep as much info/files with as little of a headache as possible?

You could backup the Dell's drivers beforehand and then restore them after putting in the other disk.
That will save you stacks of work.
Backup and Restore Device Drivers - ElevenForumTutorials

Do look up linking your activation*** to an MSAccount. That would cope with any licensing difference between the computers but, as you say, a latitude is likely to have been activated with Pro anyway.
*** See Bree's post #4 [he knows about this stuff] - Reactiving windows on new hardware (retail box)

You will also find a Dell service tag on the casing [and in the Bios] that you can use to uniquely identify that computer so you can check drivers at
Dell Drivers & downloads [multi-region link] - Dell


Denis

I'd swap the drives, and keep my fingers crossed. In my limited experience, 10 and 11 are quite good at replacing drivers after a swap of that kind. It may be useful to have availability for a hardwired Internet connection for the Dell.

One possible concern: Dell seems to have a fondness for using the Intel RST drivers, even when no RAID is present. (Or no Optane cache drive is present.) I'm not sure whether you'd need to change a BIOS setting in the Dell before swapping in the drives form the HP.

I have to look again, but I don't think the Dell has an internet ethernet port (I know the HP does not).

My current thought... He sent me the system with a formatted drive, so I was going to make a Win11(probably Pro) install USB and throw that on there (with the 256GB drive in it) just to make sure that sound and everything works... I know the screen is fine and the limited keys I hit when I ran the BIOS diagnostics worked, so I don't have reason to believe anything is wrong with the system.

bobkn said:

I'd swap the drives, and keep my fingers crossed. In my limited experience, 10 and 11 are quite good at replacing drivers after a swap of that kind. It may be useful to have availability for a hardwired Internet connection for the Dell.

One possible concern: Dell seems to have a fondness for using the Intel RST drivers, even when no RAID is present. (Or no Optane cache drive is present.) I'm not sure whether you'd need to change a BIOS setting in the Dell before swapping in the drives form the HP.

Click to expand...

No idea either on that one... I figured (probably won't work) but after I have the drive in there and Windows is acting 'normal' I would go to the Dell website and see if I could get it to detect the system (if it checks BIOS and not for its bloatware) and force update EVERY driver no matter what Windows used just to start off with, than let Windows Update handle them like normal in the future.

Archigos said:

I don't think the Dell has an internet port (I know the HP does not)

Click to expand...

I assume you mean Ethernet port.
I imagine both have WiFi.


Denis

Yes, Ethernet... I was using dictation and I have a speech impediment and Siri messes up my words sometimes... sorry about that.

Archigos said:

No idea either on that one

Click to expand...

You can test for the IRST driver issue.
Test for possible NVMe missing - NavyLCdr #9 - ElevenForum
Source of necessary IRST driver - NavyLCdr #15 - ElevenForum
No Drives Can Be Found During Windows Installation - Dell
No Drives Can Be Found During Windows Installation - HP Customer Support


Denis

bobkn said:

I'd swap the drives, and keep my fingers crossed. In my limited experience, 10 and 11 are quite good at replacing drivers after a swap of that kind. It may be useful to have availability for a hardwired Internet connection for the Dell.

One possible concern: Dell seems to have a fondness for using the Intel RST drivers, even when no RAID is present. (Or no Optane cache drive is present.) I'm not sure whether you'd need to change a BIOS setting in the Dell before swapping in the drives form the HP.

Click to expand...

Yep, and a LAN connection to internet when firing it up so drivers might be located. Certainly worth a try, I did this once between different laptops some time ago and it worked.

Archigos said:

I have to look again, but I don't think the Dell has an internet ethernet port (I know the HP does not).

My current thought... He sent me the system with a formatted drive, so I was going to make a Win11(probably Pro) install USB and throw that on there (with the 256GB drive in it) just to make sure that sound and everything works... I know the screen is fine and the limited keys I hit when I ran the BIOS diagnostics worked, so I don't have reason to believe anything is wrong with the system.


No idea either on that one... I figured (probably won't work) but after I have the drive in there and Windows is acting 'normal' I would go to the Dell website and see if I could get it to detect the system (if it checks BIOS and not for its bloatware) and force update EVERY driver no matter what Windows used just to start off with, than let Windows Update handle them like normal in the future.

Click to expand...

The hard connection is unnecessary, as long as you can provide drivers for whatever network adapter is built-in to the Dell. (It's fairly likely that Windows would already have the WiFi adapter drivers present, I believe.) I should have qualified it. A hard connection is the most foolproof way, but it's almost certainly unnecessarily.

I think that you should have no trouble doing what you wish.

I agree with Bob.

And once you've restored the Dell's backed up drivers in one swift & painless step [see post #2], you'll have the WiFi driver anyway.


Denis

Even if all goes well be sure to do the usual sfc and DISM checks after. Never hurts to know the system is in good shape.

Yeah, I have a batch file to run all those and do it before/after most Windows Updates and any time the system is acting up for whatever reason... Thanks everyone... Now I just need to find a screwdriver that's small enough. :)

Update... I had to mess around a bit to get it working properly, but I'm now on the Dell using the larger SSD and RAM with little issues... I had to reset my login PIN, fix a couple of apps, and sign in to some stuff again, but nothing too serious.