Solved Swap my current SSD into new machine for quick start & bigger storage???

lettersquash · Nov 24, 2023

Can you just swap your old/current SSD into another machine and boot it up, instead of starting from scratch with Windows and setting it all up the same? I know you can clone SSDs to swap to a bigger one. I'm not sure what issues there are with the Windows certificate, for instance - does it just accept the same OS and all the data, despite it having a different machine? Do I have to jump through any hoops with activation or anything?

I'm getting a new-to-me laptop (Thinkpad L390 Yoga) after mine developed a charging issue (long story; probably motherboard fault). I'm using Win 11 Pro and have spent a good while getting it all set up. The new one has only a 256 GB SSD, where this one is 512 GB. These aren't deal breakers, and I've also to think about the question of whether this would affect any possible need to return to the seller (eBay, but long established with 100% positive feedback), or if I could just swap the SSD back if it doesn't work.

They are the exact same model running Win 11 Pro, but a different processor (i5 versus my i7), memory (16 GB versus my 8 GB) and the SSD.

Megahertz · Nov 24, 2023

A friend had a charging issue on his Lenovo. He sent to a shop that changed a MOSFET switch on the MB.

If both computers has a Digital license for the same Win type (Home, Home SL or Pro) there will be no issues as hardware is the same.
If the memory on the old computer isn't soldered on the MB you can also move it to the new.

Is it a M.2 NVMe drive? When you open the the back cover disconnect the main battery before you work on it.

lettersquash · Nov 24, 2023

Megahertz said:
A friend had a charging issue on his Lenovo. He sent to a shop that changed a MOSFET switch on the MB.

That's interesting. I wonder how they knew what the issue was. Mine started reporting that there was no battery detected. The local shop changed the battery for a new one, to no avail, and ran a bunch of tests to analyse the system and hardware, and that failed to find anything. They said this meant it was likely to be a fault had developed on the MB and it would probably be fairly expensive to send to the people they used (or anyone else). I never looked into that option further. I've just kept it on mains since.

Megahertz said:
If both computers has a Digital license for the same Win type (Home, Home SL or Pro) there will be no issues as hardware is the same.

Thanks, that's good to know. However, after looking in my user guide to see if it's M.2, it might not be wise, or it might possibly not even fit. They descirbe how to change a "long M.2" and "short M.2" drive, but since mine is 512 and the 'new' one a 128, they might be different sizes - I didn't think of that. In addition, it warns against changing it except for upgrades and reminds me that they're delicate and to back everything up and it might need a new installation of the OS. I think I might now favour just starting again, set Windows up, put up with the smaller drive, and move data to another drive more often.

Megahertz said:
If the memory on the old computer isn't soldered on the MB you can also move it to the new.

That's ok (they're soldered), but the new one will be 16 GB instead of my current 8 (which I'm hoping should make up for the slower i5 instead of i7 processor).

Megahertz said:
Is it a M.2 NVMe drive? When you open the the back cover disconnect the main battery before you work on it.

Yeah, they're M.2. Many thanks for your help!

spapakons · Nov 24, 2023

If you are talking about buying a bigger SSD and clone your old, yes I have done it countless times, activation is not affected. Some cloning applications will clone proportionaly, which means you get the same partitions with the Windows partition having the rest of the disk as free space. Others will clone the Windows partition at the same size and leave the rest space as unallocated. You need to expand the Windows partition of take the rest space.

If you mean to transfer an existing Windows installation on a different computer, yes this is possible as well. Windows at first boot will detect and install drivers for the new hardware. You might have to activate again. If the target computer already has a digital license it will activate automatically.

lettersquash · Nov 24, 2023

spapakons said:
If you are talking about buying a bigger SSD and clone your old, yes I have done it countless times, activation is not affected.

No, that's what's different. I'm buying the same model of s/h laptop, but it has half the storage and a fresh installation. My thought was to save time and keep my bigger drive by taking the smaller drive out of the 'new' machine and replacing it with the bigger one from mine, complete with all my software, tweaks and data (it no longer recognises its battery, so is a pain). Megahertz informed me that should work fine, but I'm a bit too concerned. I'd have to back it all up anyway, and I'd probably be doing this within the 15 day returns window from the eBay seller, so I probably shouldn't take too many risks.

spapakons said:
Some cloning applications will clone proportionaly, which means you get the same partitions with the Windows partition having the rest of the disk as free space. Others will clone the Windows partition at the same size and leave the rest space as unallocated. You need to expand the Windows partition of take the rest space.

If you mean to transfer an existing Windows installation on a different computer, yes this is possible as well. Windows at first boot will detect and install drivers for the new hardware. You might have to activate again. If the target computer already has a digital license it will activate automatically.

Thanks.

spapakons · Nov 24, 2023

Simply swap disks. Most probably you won't have to update any drivers since the computers are the same model and Windows will activate automatically since both computers already have a digital license for this version of Windows.

Megahertz · Nov 24, 2023

Most M.2 NVMe drives are 2280 (22mm wide and 80mm long) despite of their capacity. Even if they have different length the MB should be able to use a different size.

spapakons · Nov 24, 2023

If the SSD are of the same type, M.2 2280, you should have no issue swapping them. The same goes for the "traditional" SATA 2.5" disks

lettersquash · Nov 26, 2023

spapakons said:
Simply swap disks. Most probably you won't have to update any drivers since the computers are the same model and Windows will activate automatically since both computers already have a digital license for this version of Windows.

I've never quite got my head around how the licensing works. Presumably the licence is stored on the SSD, but does Windows check if the motherboard is the right one? I vaguely remember something about the Windows licence being registered to a particular motherboard. They will both be licenced, but I wondered if the fact they won't match might cause an issue.

lettersquash · Nov 26, 2023

Megahertz said:
Most M.2 NVMe drives are 2280 (22mm wide and 80mm long) despite of their capacity. Even if they have different length the MB should be able to use a different size.

Thanks - yeah looking again in the user manual, the shorter one just fits into a bracket so it fits the same as the long one.

I also realised I was wrong about the memory - it isn't soldered. I was confusing it with the L390 non-Yoga, which opens to 180 degrees (never saw the point of that!) but the Yoga has two slots for removable memory, up to 64 GB I believe.

Megahertz · Nov 26, 2023

lettersquash said:
I've never quite got my head around how the licensing works. Presumably the licence is stored on the SSD, but does Windows check if the motherboard is the right one? I vaguely remember something about the Windows licence being registered to a particular motherboard. They will both be licenced, but I wondered if the fact they won't match might cause an issue.

Your old and new computer has a Digital License that is linked to the MB and to Win type (pro or home), not to the Windows on the drive.
If you install the old SSD into the new drive and both (new and old computer) has same Win type (pro or home) there will be no issues. It will remain activated.

TM21 · Nov 26, 2023

@lettersquash
My quick answer to your original question would be "Yes".
I currently have three computers, both Desktop and Laptop, running with Clones of the SSD in my MAIN PC.
That includes this one, that does have the same brand of CPU, (AMD), but in the case of one laptop, the CPU is an Intel.
Windows 11 just didn't seem to care, but it installed the necessary drivers for the new computer and took off running like it had been originally installed on that PC.

That ability for a Windows HD to be moved to a different PC began with Windows 8.1 and has continued through Windows 11.
Just try it...don't get all hung up on details.
I've done it many times, with NO problems.

The person saying it can't be done, probably just never tried it.
I started moving HD's around from PC to PC years ago, with Windows 8.1, and I continue doing it today with Windows 11.

TM

spapakons · Nov 26, 2023

It can also be done in Windows 7, I have done it, but you better stay loyal to the same manufacturers, or you get a BSOD. That is if you upgrade from one generation of Intel to a newer generation, Windows will successfully boot to the desktop and ask you for drivers Windows Update cannot find. Of course you then have to activate again. If you mix Intel with AMD 99.99% you get a BSOD, unless you first generalize Windows. I cannot tell if generalization works for sure, never done it, I was loyal to Intel. But I have upgraded several computers from one generation of Intel to a newer always successfully. This was to save myself the trouble of a clean installation and avoiding reinstall everything from start. I simply moved the old disk to the new machine every time. Pentium 4 to Core 2 Duo to Core-i3

lettersquash · Nov 26, 2023

Megahertz said:
Your old and new computer has a Digital License that is linked to the MB and to Win type (pro or home), not to the Windows on the drive.
If you install the old SSD into the new drive and both (new and old computer) has same Win type (pro or home) there will be no issues. It will remain activated.

Great stuff, cheers, this is looking like it's worth doing.

TechnoMage2021 said:
@lettersquash
My quick answer to your original question would be "Yes".
I currently have three computers, both Desktop and Laptop, running with Clones of the SSD in my MAIN PC.
That includes this one, that does have the same brand of CPU, (AMD), but in the case of one laptop, the CPU is an Intel.
Windows 11 just didn't seem to care, but it installed the necessary drivers for the new computer and took off running like it had been originally installed on that PC.

That ability for a Windows HD to be moved to a different PC began with Windows 8.1 and has continued through Windows 11.
Just try it...don't get all hung up on details.
I've done it many times, with NO problems.

The person saying it can't be done, probably just never tried it.
I started moving HD's around from PC to PC years ago, with Windows 8.1, and I continue doing it today with Windows 11.

TM

I much appreciate your answer, thanks. It wasn't someone saying it can't be done, it was some warnings in the user manual, most likely just covering themselves anyway, and me getting hung up on details! PC problems make me very nervous after too many bad experiences. I still have some concern about the cause of the "Battery status: no battery is detected" issue, which is the reason I'm changing, in case that could corrupt the new machine somehow. The shop ran all the usual tests, new battery, analysed the system, etc., and said it looks like it's a fault's developed on the MB, so nothing to do with the SSD, presumably. Anyway, you and others have given me courage to bite the bullet when it arrives and swap them. I'll get an external drive and do a full backup or disk image just in case.

spapakons said:
It can also be done in Windows 7, I have done it, but you better stay loyal to the same manufacturers, or you get a BSOD. That is if you upgrade from one generation of Intel to a newer generation, Windows will successfully boot to the desktop and ask you for drivers Windows Update cannot find. Of course you then have to activate again. If you mix Intel with AMD 99.99% you get a BSOD, unless you first generalize Windows. I cannot tell if generalization works for sure, never done it, I was loyal to Intel. But I have upgraded several computers from one generation of Intel to a newer always successfully. This was to save myself the trouble of a clean installation and avoiding reinstall everything from start. I simply moved the old disk to the new machine every time. Pentium 4 to Core 2 Duo to Core-i3

Shouldn't be any worries there, I'm guessing. The 'new' one is i5-8265U and I'm currently using i7-8565U (so the new one is slightly slower, but it's got twice the memory installed). Yeah, this is a revelation to me, not having to start from that annoying welcome screen, install all my programs, uninstall all the dross, etc. Thanks.

lettersquash · Nov 30, 2023

OK, I've got the new L390 - looks great - and preparing to swap my SSD from my old one to this new one.

Sorry if this is all overkill, but I just want to take a belt-and-braces approach to this. I have created an image of my whole drive using Aomei Backupper, as well as some of the most important user data separately on a USB drive. After Aomei finished the image, it invited me to make an entry in the boot selector so if the system crashed I could restore the image from my USB drive, using WindowsPE, but I declined because this required buying the full version. What other options do I have if something goes wrong swapping the system SSD into the new machine? Are there other ways of restoring the saved image to the drive?

Quick reminder of the spec: Both are Lenovo Thinkpad L390 Yoga
- Slightly different model numbers: 20NT0019UK (mine) and 20NT0013UK ('new' one)
Current machine: i7-8565U processor, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD - Windows 11 Pro
Newer machine: i5-8265U processor, 16GB RAM, 128GB SSD - fresh install of Win11 Pro
So both are Intel, but the destination machine's i5 is presumably OLDER than my i7.
The BIOS is different, since I updated mine last year.
UEFI/BIOS on mine is set to UEFI only; new one says BOTH

Anything else you can think of I should do?
The manual says before installing any CRUs, Customer Replaceable Units, to disable Fast Startup and then in the BIOS disable the battery, when it automatically shuts down for servicing.

Cheers

spapakons · Nov 30, 2023

I am not sure about AOMEI Backupper, but most backup applications have the option to create a bootable USB flash drive to launch the backup application from there if Windows is damaged. You boot with the USB and you restore to a new disk from the backup. The alternative is not to take a full backup (copy data to backup files), but CLONE the source disk on a same size or larger target disk. This does a 1:1 copy of the data on the target disk, so if the original disk is damaged you can either clone back from the target to the original disk (if there is no physical damage on the original disk) or just discard the original disk and replace it with the clone. Most likely you might need to activate Windows again due to the change of disk, but since you already have a digital license for this computer it should activate again automatically.

lettersquash · Nov 30, 2023

Thanks spapakons. Yeah, I'm basically doing a full backup of the whole disk, but there are two methods, cloning and making an image. I've done the latter, which I think is the same only compressed. Hard drive imaging vs. cloning: What's the difference?

This is not for use as the system disk directly, since I've got the original to put in my newer laptop. It's in case I find something in that process causes a blue screen and I can't fix it. I'm not going to want to just run Windows from my external copy, I'm going to want to restore it to the internal SSD (or another one if necessary).

So I'm really getting to grips with general security of the system I probably should have already. I don't have external rescue media. I fully expect (well, 99.9%) that when I swap my SSD into the new machine, it'll just work, but doing that feels risky, so it's a good opportunity to get to grips with it. If I kill the SSD somehow, I need it all backed up to restore.

If the SSD becomes corrupted, I would need to be able to boot into Windows (which won't be available) - in order to restore my image file. So maybe it's rescue media I should create. I'm a bit concerned that freeware like Aomei might be needed to restore the image it has created, since it's doing a lot of compression and probably of a proprietary structure. It's not a .ISO but .adi. I was surprised it only took about 10 minutes to write to the USB drive.

Maybe I should just buy the full version, and then it gives you tools to create bootable media for restoring images. Or maybe there's a Microsoft method that's free.

From Windows Central:

There are a few ways you can recover your computer using a drive image. If your Windows 10 PC suffers from a blue screen error and can't boot properly, you'll be confronted with a menu with an option to restore from a system image. In that case, you can choose your image (usually saved on an external drive) and restore your PC. Also, if you create a recovery environment on a separate USB stick or external hard drive, you can restore an image on a PC that doesn't have Windows 10 installed at all.

So it looks like I need a RE on a USB stick (in case the recovery options on the SSD don't kick in). But I'm not sure that will restore this proprietary .adi image file.

SIW2 · Nov 30, 2023

Like most 3rd party imaging programs, .adi is a proprietary format and you need aomei to restore it. So you should create recovery media with aomei on it.

If you get stuck there is a version of backupper on the boot media I made a while ago. It can do the restore.

1904v3.iso

the 1904v3.iso can be extracted to create bootable usb stick using Usb7ice (attached below)

it is very easy

lettersquash · Nov 30, 2023

SIW2 said:
Like most 3rd party imaging programs, .adi is a proprietary format and you need aomei to restore it. So you should create recovery media with aomei on it.

If you get stuck there is a version of backupper on the boot media I made a while ago. It can do the restore.

1904v3.iso

Wow, that's kind of you, S. Is that to burn to a USB drive, like is it a bootable Windows (WinPE?) with Backupper - I saw that was one of their options to create. And would I need to put it as an option in the boot records in BIOS first, i.e. before any possible issue arises?

I read the instructions again and yes, BU is needed to restore their images. I was thinking, since it's unlikely to be needed, I've got the image and if something did go wrong I'd buy the paid version, install on another PC and make the relevant media, but maybe this file of yours is just that.

Is there not just a MS version of this - or maybe that's not free either? Thanks very much.

lettersquash · Dec 1, 2023

Yay, I can hardly believe it! I thought the first thing to do was post here from my 2nd L390 Thinkpad with the SSD swapped over. Thanks everyone who helped with this. I think I'd have bottled it without you. It was a bit nerve-wracking as it booted up, but it just did a bit of a system update and that was that.

It hasn't activated Windows yet. I'm not sure if it will (if the servers are busy), or if I should use one of the options, as per screenshot.

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