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PC Won't Boot off Another Machine's Harddrive

Anonymous
2024-08-09T19:11:46+00:00

I have set up a new build for family and they want it to look just like their old machine from the user interface side/programs installed. I have set up the new build and downloaded a different SSD with Windows to make sure everything is working fine and all is working as advertised.

Then I try swapping out the hard drive. This method worked with other machines but for this one when I tell the machine to boot from that drive, it boots to a blank black screen or a black screen with a cursor on the top left as if it'd let me type. What am I doing wrong? The MB is an ASRock B650M Pro RS running an AMD Ryzen 500 8000 series. It seems that the new machine doesn't recognize that there's an OS on the SSD but it boots just fine on the old machine.

Notes:

If I put the SSD I downloaded fresh Windows on for troubleshooting back in and also have the SSD I want to boot from, I can see them both when booted into the fresh OS SSD. I can see all the windows files but it will not boot form it

Old machine is a 4-gen i5, so swapping to AMD

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Devices and drivers

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  1. Neil D 33,235 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2024-08-09T19:20:43+00:00

    Depending on the older machine it may have the disk set as MBR and the new one has the bios set expecting a GPT disk.

    GPT is a newer format and means the bios of the new machine is set to boot in UEFI mode and not the older legacy boot.

    Check the bios boot setting and see if it is UEFI and if it is look to change to legacy. If you make the change then the newer disk you have then will not boot.

    Otherwise it's because there is too much of a difference in drivers required for the newer motherboard.

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  2. @CmdrKeene 90,626 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2024-08-09T19:51:32+00:00

    Depends a bit on how it's done, you can reinstall Windows without erasing the drive and preserve files, although it's sure far easier to do that yourself than hope the install migrates everything to the C:\windows.old\ directory without issues. usually you'd just reinstall, create the profiles, and drag all the files back into the users' folders.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-08-09T19:40:14+00:00

    Will reinstalling windows delete their profiles?

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-08-09T19:39:07+00:00

    CSM is enabled, switched video OpRom policy to legacy from UEFI only, and changed the launch storage OpROM policy to legacy only. Now getting no video signal

    Would it be as simple as deleting the drivers when opening up File Explorer?

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  5. @CmdrKeene 90,626 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2024-08-09T19:33:44+00:00

    Windows does not officially support transplanting a drive into a different computer. Sometimes it works, and I guess that gave some people a bad impression, but it's not designed or expected to work when you do this.

    Short answer: if you want it to work, you need to reinstall Windows onto that drive from a USB like this, while the drive is inside the computer where it will be used.

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