Can i change my hard drives?

S

snoots

New Member
Ok so a few weeks ago my laptop just randomly stopped working. My mom sent her old one over because she just replaced it with an iPad. My old laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1521, It has Windows 7 Home premium, 32bit operating system, with a 320gb hard drive and the new laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1521 with Windows Vista Home Premium, and also a 32 bit system. I have tried when my old computer worked to preform a factory reset and it did not have a Dell Factory Image on the computer . I read some where that the hard drive would need reformated in order to work. Could someone give me some help like a step by step guide to make these work if they are compatable? I plugged the old hard drive into the new pc and it loads to the startup repair and shows the accounts i had on it before so i would imagine it works but i think i need to run start up repair? Some kind of instructions on how to swap these hard drives, even if i would have to re format all of the hard drives i would be ok with that
 
I dont think i can do that. windows 7 was forced on by my sisters cousin when she owned the old laptop. both laptops have windows vista on the label on the bottom of the laptop. I plugged the old hd into my new laptop and it sent it to startup repair but showed my 2 user accounts and i had to type my password to enter the menu so i would imagine that the hard drive is good. it just wont turn on for some reason just randomly woke up one day and tried it and it wont even charge
 
I'm not quite understanding your situation here then.

You have an inspiron with windows 7 that don't work and then you have an inspiron with vista that does work? I thought you were trying to get your window 7 laptop working?
 
no, just trying to swap my hard drive. is it possible to use my win7 hd on a vista laptop, if so pleeeeaaassseee help me lol
 
It will likely not work as the Windows versions that you have will be what is known as OEM, meaning any major hardware changes which Microsoft deem to constitute a new computer will make the key invalid, as it is only good for the computer that the key was originally used on.

You would also have to take out all driver software completely and install new, which can cause more issues if any of the old drivers are left over to cause a driver conflict.

Download the Windows disc that John put and burn it to a DVD.

Drop the drive into your computer and start it up with the disc in the drive.

Let it boot from the DVD and use the startup repair when it loads.

See if it works. Beat way to find out is to try ;)
 
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