M11x R1 to R3: Keep Hard Drive?

I'm posting this here in case someone else tried it and has it all figured out.

My R3 is supposed to be here Friday afternoon. For reasons I'll explain later, I am hoping to put my R1 HD into my R3. I'm thinking I'll go through and uninstall all (hopefully only some) of the old drivers, swap HDs, then load the new drivers. Likewise putting the R3 HD in the R1. Has anyone tried this? Is it easier than this? Like I'm hoping the drivers are close enough that I won't have to do much work to get this done.

Now here's why I'm doing it: My m11x is my main work computer, and we kinda have to have ActiveDirectory on it. Which means I had to spend $75 out of my budget for Win 7 Pro (Home can't do AD, apparently). The IT guys are the only ones with the VLK to do the reinstall of Win 7 Pro, so if I start from scratch they have to do it for me (even though I have done it myself a zillion times, they got into trouble last time they let just anyone have the VLK). Most important: my R1 has the Momentus Hybrid drive, and I think I got whatever comes standard with the R3, and I'd like to keep the better drive.

 

I did it when I went from my R2 to my R3, but why not just convert your R1 load into a VM. VMware Player is free as well as VMware converter.

 

It purely depends, is your Win7 Pro license retail or OEM?

Because if it was an OEM Win7 Pro which you're going to use inside of a machine which only has an OEM license for Win7 Home, from a legal business perspective that's not the best thing to be doing.

I'm just saying this because i used to do some client-side support & tech and if a client asked me to do that, i would have to decline and refuse to do it for both legal and ethical reasons. I don't know your business or circumstances but if a company is audited and is found using OEM serials on PC's which don't hold the license... HUGE fines, like unbelievably huge.

 

It's a Volume License Key. So it's neither retail nor OEM, as I understand it. I mentioned what I want to do to one of the tech guys and he has assured me that it should not be a problem.

I'm thinking maybe I should try the VMWare idea. I'm doing it now with an XP installation with my smartboard software (I make lessons on this computer, but I do not present them, so I don't need the crazy drivers loading all the time), and with Lion. At the very least it would be a nice stopgap measure.

 

Okay I did it, but I musta done it wrong. TF2 sucks, for example. It's like a slideshow.

 

You swapped your HDD, so the HDD still has all of the M11x R1 drivers on it. your HDD thinks your PC is an M11xR1, and your PC thinks your HDD has no drivers (which it doesn't).

Go to the Dell/Alienware site and download the drivers for your R3.

 

I did that already. I uninstalled such drivers as I thought most likely to cause problems, too, like video and stuff.

The first thing you learn in life is that you're a fool. The second thing you learn is that you're the same fool. Turns out I was using the old power cord, but the new one needs 90W. So the computer had me on ultra-power-save mode or something. I plugged 'er in right and it started doing well. More details to follow. If it becomes a hassle, I have a good, recent backup. I can reinstall Monday.

 

Okay, my device manager is happy except for one thing:
High Definition Audio Device. Ven 8086 Dev 2805. I can't figure out which driver will fix this. After some googling, Ven 8086 is Intel. After a little more I found that 2805 is related to the chipset drivers. Reinstalling the chipset drivers didn't work, though.

Any ideas?

EDIT: Immediately after writing the above, it occurred to me to scour the Intel driver site again. This time, I looked under Graphics, then Processor Graphics, and there was something about Second-Generation Core(TM) Processors and graphics, including Display Audio. It was the Graphics Media Accelerator drivers.