How to run old laptop hard drive on new laptop?

I had a laptop that recently broke and I was able to take out the 2.5 inch SATA seagate hard drive and put it in an external enclosure. My question is how would I be able to run the same exact configuration on my new laptop? My old hard drive uses windows xp and the majority of new laptops come with vista.

I want to be able to have everything configured the same on my new laptop. For example, I want the desktop icons to be the same and my bookmarks transferred over on the new laptop.

Should I just copy the files from my laptop hard drive directly onto the new laptop even though the new one uses vista? I don't think I would be able to run the same configuration from xp to vista. I will be able to have all my data but it probably wouldn't be the same.

Should I just swap my old laptop hard drive in place of the new laptop hard drive and hopefully it will boot up windows xp? I am not sure this will work. IF anyone can give me some advice, that would be great. My main concern is wanting to have everything configured the same.

I also have norton ghost. I don't really know what I can do with that since I got it for free with a rebate.
Thanks.

 

You can transfer the desktop pictures and bookmarks and data, but the copy of XP itself was OEM and cannot be transferred. It has to die with the laptop.

If you swap it it will not work either...and you shouldn't legally anyway.

 

Sadly Greg is once again correct, you shouldn't just swap the HDD. But you can just copy the files you need over to your new HDD, but programs will require reinstall. As for whether the swap would theoretically work, thats a whole 'nother matter. Which, assuming you want to follow your EULA, should not be done.

 

I hate having to say it, but it needed to be said.

You'll definitely have to install programs over, and I've never heard of a successful swap.

Anyway, there are some notebooks that still have XP available. HP Compaq business and Dell Latitude business machines come to mind.

 

You can sometimes do a successful swap if both notebooks are the same manufacturer and versions of the same model. I moved a bootable HDD from the Samsung X60 (Core Duo CPU + X1400 GPU) to the X60 plus (Core 2 duo CPU + X1700 GPU). I had to reinstall the graphics driver but the rest of the hardware caused no problems.

John

 

I have one HP laptop that has major power issues and am interested in buying a used version of the exact same model with same type of hard drive. Can I just swap the drives and boot up the new machine and have everything look and work exactly the same?

Thanks for the help.

 

If the chipset is similar (Intel to Intel) and the graphics are similar (Nvidia to Nvidia) it will likely swap fine.

However, if you are swapping from an ATI notebook to an Nvidia notebook, uninstall the graphics driver before doing so, or you will likely get a blue screen of death.

You should just do a copy of all the information though, because the key your operating system is licensed under and was installed with should stay with that computer.