How would I take old laptop hard drives' and implement into new completely different laptop?

rav007

Honorable
May 7, 2012
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10,510
Old laptop = Toshiba Satellite L500 with core2 duo, 4gb ddr2 ram, ati mobility 4650
New laptop = Optimus IV (PC Specialist, Clevo w350etq) i5 3230m, 8gb DDR3 ram, nvidia GTX 660m

I want to take my 2 Samsung 840 250gb SSDs from the toshiba and put them into the optimus iv. One has my current OS on there and the other just has regular files nothing installed. I believe I can't just put them into the new laptop, but someone must have successfully done a similar type of transfer before so I need some advice.

I think I am lucky because I have 2 SSDs and one has the OS. Would it be best to:

1. Back up both SSD files and content onto external drive
2. Create win8 boot disk on Toshiba laptop
3. Format the non-OS SSD on toshiba laptop and transfer into optimus iv (that way if problems arise with boot disk, I still have a working computer and OS)
4. Use win8 disk to re-install windows onto new laptop
5. Providing step 4 is successful, format Toshiba laptop OS SSD and transfer onto the new computer
6. restore backed up files and clean install all programs I had before?

Would this work? Or is there a better way that someone would recommend?
 
Solution
Assuming your new laptop has mounts for two drives, that will work.

Your applications will need to be reinstalled on the new machine, but the files can just transfer over.