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danielf · 15-10-2011, 19:45

OK, so the wife killed our laptop by feeding it tea, and a replacement has arrived.

I took the Hard drive out of the old laptop, and stuck it in a USB caddy to get the data off it. For the most part I've succeeded in that, with the exception of some stuff from a Wordpress site she was working on.

I've got all the Wordpress files, but it looks like some of the settings were written to the database, which hasn't been backed up.

So I figured I'd try to boot the new laptop (Windows 7) from the old Vista drive in the USB caddy. The laptop does give me the option to boot from a USB HDD, but the Vista drive won't boot, and tells me it can't find the OS.

Any thoughts on what could cause this, or is this just Vista telling me it won't run on new hardware?

tizmeinnit · 15-10-2011, 19:49

if you have a vista dvd boot from it and go to repair options see if it sees the drive. If not try installing it into the laptop if its sata the same see if its seen that way

ZrByte · 15-10-2011, 20:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by danielf

OK, so the wife killed our laptop by feeding it tea, and a replacement has arrived.

I took the Hard drive out of the old laptop, and stuck it in a USB caddy to get the data off it. For the most part I've succeeded in that, with the exception of some stuff from a Wordpress site she was working on.

I've got all the Wordpress files, but it looks like some of the settings were written to the database, which hasn't been backed up.

So I figured I'd try to boot the new laptop (Windows 7) from the old Vista drive in the USB caddy. The laptop does give me the option to boot from a USB HDD, but the Vista drive won't boot, and tells me it can't find the OS.

Any thoughts on what could cause this, or is this just Vista telling me it won't run on new hardware?

Its because you are bootig from a USB caddy when the drive was setup to boot as a sata.
If u are confident enough it could be worth installing the drive inside your laptop but that may not work either and may invalidate your warranty.

danielf · 15-10-2011, 23:03

Cheers guys,

I don't have a Vista DVD, so it looks like sticking the drive into the laptop would be the only option, but I'm not sure it's worth it.

I could try the drive in the new laptop or a netbook I've got lying around, but I'd need to get some proper small screw drivers (I murdered the head on one of the screws trying to get the drive from the old laptop using an ill-fitting screw driver) before even attempting this.

Then I'd wonder if the drive would even work in a new machine given MS's reluctance to allow hardware changes. Most importantly though, the wife's already resolved to having to re-do some work, and me not saving her bacon might help her think about backing up a bit more (and not feeding liquids to computer equipment).

heero_yuy · 16-10-2011, 09:57

The one thing MS will choke on is changing the mobo so you'll probably never be able to boot that drive on new hardware. You could try re-installing/repairing the original OS if you have the disks, that would keep the user data intact. I'd only do it with the new HDD not in the machine to preserve it in case of accidents.