I just got an HP commercial grade laptop to replace the still fairly new but disliked Dell I'm using at the moment. It took me several days if not a week or more to get everything on this one and setup the way I like it... and I REALLY don't want to repeat that any time soon (or ever)!

I would just swap HDDs but Windows 10 is registered to a specific computer S/N once installed and operational, so I'm reasonably sure the 1TB drive from the Dell will not work properly if moved to the HP.

So what is the best solution to do this? In my old IT days we used LapLink, but that's been 15+ years ago. How is it done in modern times? Free or nearly free solutions are preferred as I don't want to drop a lot of coin on something I may use once every few years!

Thanks in advance!!!

You can either mount the original drive in an enclosure and connect to the new one.
or
Network (WIFI or Wired) the computers and transfer the date over the network.
Largely the data is located in your USERS> {profile name} folder.
There could be data in other places but copying your Documents/pictures/Favorites will get most everything you have.

If you have Windows registered to a Microsoft account, then the OS is not registered to the hardware, but to the account. You can in fact swap the hard drives. I had an HP desktop that fried a motherboard and I built a new system and dropped the HP hard drive in the newly built desktop. Windows immediately registered itself once I logged on.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
You can either mount the original drive in an enclosure and connect to the new one.
or
Network (WIFI or Wired) the computers and transfer the date over the network.
Largely the data is located in your USERS> {profile name} folder.
There could be data in other places but copying your Documents/pictures/Favorites will get most everything you have.

This is the way I've been trying to do it all morning, but not having much luck!

On the server computer (the Dell I'm transferring from) I can see the client on the network, but on the client computer I cannot get it to "see" the server computer! I tried just transferring everything from the client, but it then asks me for login credentials and password to access the server... and I have no idea what they are as I haven't set up anything like that on the HP.

I didn't really want to physically swap drives because it's a real bear to even get TO the drive in the Dell (you gotta remove a whole bunch of other stuff first), but I may have to go that route instead if I can't solve the network dilemma.

quote:

asks me for login credentials and password to access the server

username: {computername}\{username}
Password: whatever you setup

Example:
username: bronco-pc\bill
password: Ridemhard22$

Create a share on the server
Also create a password on the original machine

There could be some other things but see how that works.

On the client that can't see the network, you may have to enable network discovery and file/printer sharing services.

Here's a random link about these.

FINALLY got it figured out... with a slight twist.

Discovered I had an ethernet crossover cable in my huge "cables/wires that I don't know what they're good for, but I won't throw them away because I might need one someday" box. I'm using that now, and after a bit of fiddly-farting around, I can see and access both computers with this direct link!

Thanks for all of the help and suggestions!!!

Just an afterthought. You never mentioned how much data you had to transfer over. If it was say <64gb you could have simply purchased a USB thumb drive and used it to move your files between the machines.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
Just an afterthought. You never mentioned how much data you had to transfer over. If it was say <64gb you could have simply purchased a USB thumb drive and used it to move your files between the machines.

It's way over 64GB due to all the photos and music files I have. I've done this process before with a flash drive, and it's just too much hassle. This ethernet connection is working wonderfully and with much less hassle... once I got it figured out that is!

There was a program called "PC Mover" that I used and it worked Great!!.
I comes with a special cable to hook the computers together and you can select what file or programs
You want to transfer.

quote:

Originally posted by Lee38:
There was a program called "PC Mover" that I used and it worked Great!!.
I comes with a special cable to hook the computers together and you can select what file or programs
You want to transfer.

Sounds similar to what I've used in the past. You purchase the program and cable and just follow the instructions on the disc. Easy peazy, for us old dinosaurs.

https://www.amazon.com/Laplink...oftware%2C171&sr=1-1