Transfering Windows Vista To another System

[heshamsobhy]

Hi
Not sure this is the correct place for this so excuse me if not.

My one year old Hp laptop has gone dead and am thinking the best solution is to buy a new one, problem is this Laptop came with an OEM vista premium.

My priority of course is to get the files from the old Laptop to the new one but if I can get the whole sytem up on the new one that would be marvelous.

I read that OEM is tied to the machine and cannot be moved to another question is if i transfer the hard disk to the new Laptop and install a new vista will it recognise the old one and repair it while preserving the system
If not will conenting the old hard disk to the new one through a USB enclosure gain me acsess to the whole hard disk including my documents.

 

[whs]

What you are trying to do is not going to work. The Vista you have is tied to the motherboard of your HP laptop. Unless you move the motherboard too (which is an unlikely option), you cannot move the OEM Vista. But you can and should save all your data to an external disk. If your laptop disk is still functioning, you can even use that. Take it out of the laptop and put it into an external enclosure (cost about $20) that attaches via USB to your new system. Once you have retrieved your data to your new system, you can reformat that disk and use it as a normal external disk.


PS: here are a few examples of external harddrive enclosures: http://www.officedepot.com/catalog/...W:13ddq0uth?fkey=null&Ntt=harddrive+enclosure

 

[smarteyeball]

Your best chance of recovering files would be your second option - the USB enclosure.

 

[MrNeeds]

its interesting this thread, most new laptops use sata II connectors, my g/f's laptop recently suffered a fall and the screen was completely smashed, the insurance company sent her the hard drive back and she gave the hard drive to me to recover, i simply connected it up to my desktop via sataII and it worked perfectly, you could just ask a techy person to connect it to their system and burn the subsequent files needed to a dvd or flash.

But what you are saying about vista OEM, its specific to the hardware, but thats all versions of vista, not just OEM, if anything, you can use the key on your previous laptop and install vista using that key, but thats the extent of the installing.

 

[heshamsobhy]

Thanks Guys for the reply, I did get an enclosure works fine can access the hard disk
problem is my files were stored on Mydocuments and once I try to access the user folder I get this
"You don't currently have permissions to access this folder click continue to access this folder"
upon clicking continue the user account control screen splaches and I choose allow but to no avail is there anyway to allow access.
I have had a look at the permissions but I am not sure what should be done here if this is the place to solve the access folder denial

 

[MrNeeds]

Thanks Guys for the reply, I did get an enclosure works fine can access the hard disk
problem is my files were stored on Mydocuments and once I try to access the user folder I get this
"You don't currently have permissions to access this folder click continue to access this folder"
upon clicking continue the user account control screen splaches and I choose allow but to no avail is there anyway to allow access.
I have had a look at the permissions but I am not sure what should be done here if this is the place to solve the access folder denial

it did the same thing for me, it takes a bit of time to apply the folder permissions, failing this you could right click the folder and take control of the folder yourself

 

[whs]

Try "Unlocker" to get to your files: ( Unlocker - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com ).

 

[heshamsobhy]

Thanks again for all those who took the time to give their input.

MrNeeds I did discover this, this is how it went with me
1) tried to apply the permissions 20 minutes or so and then lost patience
2) tried again and after ten minuites fed up and posted my last comment
3) took the hard and tried as a usb disk (boot from) on new PC got err3 system not found
4) connected to the semi dead pc started up and during this failed then got same error
5) connected internally to orignall pc got same error
6) reconected to the new pc as a usb slave and tried to apply permissions again in under one min I got acess.

Not sure if all this swaping around and corrupting the operating system had any thing to do with it or if the orignall trial to apply permissions was saved and this reduced the time (which I think is the most probable).

On a side note, Relived as I am to acess my data I am kind of dismayed that I could gain acess without being asked for the folder password , the main reason I stuck to vista was the impression I had that you cannot acess personal folders without having the password, I even recall that on the originall pc when u log on as a different user you could not get acess, to the other users folders(Icould be wrong on this maybe it was just the time to apply the permissions), on this new pc with 6.0 build 6000 if you log on as a different user once you get acess to the other user it dose ask for the password is this an improvment or what.
Any way I am not complaining I am a happy man , I would rather have access to my files if i loose my pc than jeopardise loosing every single peice of data. as for security its not as if i am working for the pentagon or such. but still it makes you wonder why hasn't microsoft come up with a simple solution for securing folders till now, somthing like folder locker or guard.