Putting HTS548040M9AT00 (from T41) into T30

[coreman]

I've got a couple of problems with my T41 that will require it to go in for repair. I have a T30 at home that I would like to use for work while the T41 is being repaired.

Is it possible/relatively easy to put the HDD from the T41 into the T30? Both are running Win XP Pro and fully updated...

[rkawakami]

As it looks like the T41 uses 9.5mm 2.5" drives... physically you should be able to swap the drives, however logically you probably should not.

You say you have Windows XP on both drives. I believe that if you swap the drives, Windows, in its attempt to auto-configure itself (i.e. Plug and Play), may get so confused as to the "new" hardware it sees that it will not operate correctly. It is even possible that once you do that, you won't be able to return to the original setup. The processor and chipset appear to be quite different between the two systems. If for some miracle, Windows does recognize all of the new hardware, it may trigger a re-activation sequence where you have to contact Microsoft for a "new" product key. I have had that happen simply by increasing memory, changing an ethernet card and an optical drive at the same time. Some application software can also be affected (Adobe Creative Suite, for one).

If you want to try this with a copy of the drive, then, sure go ahead since you don't have anything to lose. But I would not try it if you don't have a backup.

[coreman]

As it looks like the T41 uses 9.5mm 2.5" drives... physically you should be able to swap the drives, however logically you probably should not.

If you want to try this with a copy of the drive, then, sure go ahead since you don't have anything to lose. But I would not try it if you don't have a backup.

I think this qualifies as a variant of Occam's Razor (simplest explanation is usually the best).

I looked at this problem way too deeply...a simple copy of the drive put onto USB HDD will work fine for me...Thanks for helping me "get out of the forest"...

[rkawakami]

Be careful that you backup both drives if you are going to attempt to install a second bootable drive into the laptop. I have ruined a Windows XP install by having two hard drives in one of my 600X systems (a result of re-booting after a clone operation). For some reason, Windows came up, thrashed the disk for quite a long time and ended up presenting me with a static "Welcome" screen. No way to log into Windows when that happened.

(edit: Here's what I found on Symantec's help site about using Ghost to clone drives:

CAUTION: Do not start the computer after cloning until the instructions say to do so. Starting a computer from the hard drive when the computer has two Active partitions can damage program installations and trigger configuration changes that you might not be able to reverse without restoring backups.)