can you take a hard drive from a pc and put it in another pc

[Juzasweeti]

i have a gateway that no longer works, but, a compaq that does will i be able to install hard drive from gateway into compaq pc

 

[USAFRet]

i have a gateway that no longer works, but, a compaq that does will i be able to install hard drive from gateway into compaq pc

The physical hard drive? Yes.
The drive, with the OS and expecting the OS to just boot up? Probably not.

What OS is this?
What are the differences in the 2 systems?

 

[mazboy]

Are you just going to move the leftover HDD into the working computer as an additional drive? Yeah, that'll work. You'll need a SATA data cable, and you'll need to locate an available SATA power cable in the working computer. Plug the drive in, boot the computer, et voila, your drive should be there. If not, open Disk Manager, locate the new disk, and partition and format it for use.

BTW...remember, ALWAYS back everything up when fooling around in this manner...it never hurts to be prepared!