Swapping HDDs between a pair of Nearly Identical T61 Units

[eecon]

After deciding against going with a new W500 for now, I see that the Lenovo Outlet is offering several reasonably priced refurbished T61p 15.4" WSXGA+ units that closely match my current T61 (as described below in my signature line), except that the processers and GPUs are faster (choice of T7800 or T9300 CPUs plus the more robust FX 570M GPU). My concern is that they both come with Vista but I prefer Windows XP Pro.

Could I possibly just swap in my current T61's Hitachi 200GB 7200RPM that is already setup just the way I want things (WinXP, Office 2003, etc) and thus save myself the trouble of reinstalling WinXP and my other software on the refurbed unit.

I'll probably keep my current less powerfull T61 as a spare unit .... Never leave home without a spare box is what they say.

BTW, CSS and R&R are not currently installed and the Security Chip is always disabled on my T61.

Thanks

[Harryc]

I think that the hard drives would be a direct swap.

[eecon]

I think that the hard drives would be a direct swap.

Thanks, sounds good.

I suppose (if I was really a worry-wort about not risking data on my current HD) that I could use Acronis TI to "clone" my current 200GB Hitachi's WinXP system's whopping 26GB of total data (after a thorough defrag with Diskeeper 2007 Pro) back onto my original 100GB 7200RPM Seagate HD that originally came with my current T61 (now just sitting in an external 2.5" SATA HD enclosure gathering dust in my spare parts drawer). Then put the cloned 100GB unit into the refurb unit and see if it works (thus not risking drivers and other data being written over on my current 200GB Hitachi)? If all goes well for a few weeks with the 100GB unit in the refurb machine, I can then clone the 100GB HD Seagate to my 200GB Hitachi like I did before when I upgraded to the larger Hitachi and throw it into the more powerful refurb T61.

[basketb]

Just a word of caution (obviously, it's your money and you can do whatever you like with it): but you may be disappointed with the real-life performance gains of the new system compared to your existing one (judging by the specs/usage you mentioned).

[eecon]

Just a word of caution (obviously, it's your money and you can do whatever you like with it): but you may be disappointed with the real-life performance gains of the new system compared to your existing one (judging by the specs/usage you mentioned).

Yes I understand ..... I'm looking to retire and upgrade my traveling unit (the 15" Flexview T42) as it no longer can fully handle some of my newer CAD design applications. This may be the year to sell it while it still has factory warranty until 11/2009 (I extended it for another 2 years past it's original 3 year warranty).

Thanks

[A.K.A]

Not trying to be a stick in the mud, and I know you're talking about XP, but might be worth noting for other readers.

Unless MS changed it, when Vista was first released, they were saying that activation of a Windows installation key would be tied to a particular motherboard, and otherwise you would have to call when activating, and give them your sob story before they would reactivate it.

Did that finally change?

[eecon]

Not trying to be a stick in the mud, and I know you're talking about XP, but might be worth noting for other readers.

Unless MS changed it, when Vista was first released, they were saying that activation of a Windows installation key would be tied to a particular motherboard, and otherwise you would have to call when activating, and give them your sob story before they would reactivate it.

Did that finally change?

Is this unique to Vista or has WinXP also been affected?

[basketb]

There is no need to (re-)activate an XP installation if you swap the HD from one T61 to another (if it's the Lenovo image - I have no experience with retail XP).

[eecon]

There is no need to (re-)activate an XP installation if you swap the HD from one T61 to another (if it's the Lenovo image - I have no experience with retail XP).

Yes, it is the original Lenovo Pre-load WinXp version .... Thanks

[jplock]

I have had the experience of swaping XP hard drives on identical Dell Latitude D620 laptops and there were no problems. They were loaded with dell setup disks. I seems like you should be able to do it with a Lenovo.
jplock

[hellosailor]

AFAIK the activation is not ties to a particular motherboard, but rather to a particular SERIES of motherboard, actually to a particular BIOS string that identifies the motherboard TYPE.

Vista activation probably follows the same rules as XP, or I missed any news about changes. When the system boots it looks at a variety of hardware and reads some things like the serial number of the hard drive and CD/DVD drive, the amount of memory and the video card and NIC types, and so one. With laptops, because there are bays and docks and swaps are normal in them, the OS will tolerate more changes. But if the total number of devices (or serial numbers) changes more than X times in 90 days, you have to call MS toll-free for reactivation. And by all accounts that's been quick and painless for the folks that have done it.

Problems you may find are that if the video systems are different, the OS may not boot in the new machine, or it may boot to safe mode or require a repair/driver reinstallation. If the hardware at all levels is completely the same--no problem. As you add each variation in each subsystem--more likely to have a problem.

Swapping drives between different computers, under any version of NT, can be problematic. Odds are it CAN be done, and relatively painlessly, at least well enough so that one machine can be used as a backup for the other even if it needs some manual tweaking to make it run.

[eecon]

AFAIK the activation is not ties to a particular motherboard, but rather to a particular SERIES of motherboard, actually to a particular BIOS string that identifies the motherboard TYPE.

Problems you may find are that if the video systems are different, the OS may not boot in the new machine, or it may boot to safe mode or require a repair/driver reinstallation. If the hardware at all levels is completely the same--no problem. As you add each variation in each subsystem--more likely to have a problem.

Well I went ahead and reverse cloned my T61's WinXP 7200 RPM HDD (15.4" WS WSXGA+), including it's OEM WinXP Service Partition, onto to my recently aquired T61p's 7200 RPM HDD (also 15.4" WS WSXGA+). The T61p came with Vista Business so I remembered to first make a set of Vista Recovery Disks before wiping out all of the T61p's partitions during the cloning operation with Acronis TI v11.

The T61p with its newly cloned WinXP HDD worked great and everything was identical to my T61 in terms of useability after the clone/swap. Both units are nearly identically configured except for the Nvidia NVS 140M versus the FX 570M video cards and different wireless network cards (Intel a/b/g versus Intel AGN). Fortunately, it seems that the different components still use the same drivers and software.

For 800 smackers, I'm very satisfied with the performance boost experienced on this mint 4 month old T61p (built in Aug 2008) ...... cost me less than half of what I priced one out new last August. It nearly triples my T61's 3DMark06 score (1669 vs 4334 .... both running WinXP) and that's with only a single 2gb memory module running in async mode while the pair of 1gb modules in the T61 are sprinting in sync mode.

And yet, it looks and phyically feels exactly the same as my T61 (just the way I had hoped) ........ except everything seems to run much faster

[crashnburn]

Unconnected but related.

Would a HDD be swappable between a T61 & X61 Tablet? Albeit with maybe different hardware profiles under windows?

[eecon]

Unconnected but related.

Would a HDD be swappable between a T61 & X61 Tablet? Albeit with maybe different hardware profiles under windows?

That T and X are pretty darn close .... my guess would be yes if they both had the same family of graphics (i.e. both have onboard graphics or both have discrete Nvidia graphics).

[crashnburn]

Unconnected but related.

Would a HDD be swappable between a T61 & X61 Tablet? Albeit with maybe different hardware profiles under windows?

That T and X are pretty darn close .... my guess would be yes if they both had the same family of graphics (i.e. both have onboard graphics or both have discrete Nvidia graphics).

I have a T61 with NVidia and an X61T with Intel. Could this be done? How would I go about achieving this?

[hellosailor]

Crash, when you say swapping the drives, do you plan to reinstall the OS? Or did you think you could just swap "brains" and still hae each one boot and run?

Generally Windows gets [censored] off if you swap the boot drive and the hardware subsystems are not identical on two machines. To begin with, there's the question of what OS. XP and later, the system enumerates hardware by type AND by internal serial number when it boots. So it may see a different amount ofmemory, different CPU, different serial number on the optical drive, different MAC on the NIC...and when it sees enough differences, that will trigger a prompt for re-activating Windows and you'll have to either go online or call MS to explain what was done.

That's assuming the Windows will boot at all, because during installation Windows compiles the "HAL.DLL" file, the hardware abstraction layer that translates things into commands specific for the hardware in the computer. Change the video system, the hard drive system, the memory type or bus, the CPU, and if you are lucky it will default back into safe mode rather than simply crash.

So first you need to find out exactly what hardware is in your computers, down to the smallest detail, and see if there are major or many differences. The more that differs, the less chance you can swap drives--unless you reinstall Windows on each one.

[eecon]

Crash, when you say swapping the drives, do you plan to reinstall the OS? Or did you think you could just swap "brains" and still hae each one boot and run?

Generally Windows gets *****Expletives removed by Moderator***** off if you swap the boot drive and the hardware subsystems are not identical on two machines. To begin with, there's the question of what OS. XP and later, the system enumerates hardware by type AND by internal serial number when it boots. So it may see a different amount ofmemory, different CPU, different serial number on the optical drive, different MAC on the NIC...and when it sees enough differences, that will trigger a prompt for re-activating Windows and you'll have to either go online or call MS to explain what was done.

That's assuming the Windows will boot at all, because during installation Windows compiles the "HAL.DLL" file, the hardware abstraction layer that translates things into commands specific for the hardware in the computer. Change the video system, the hard drive system, the memory type or bus, the CPU, and if you are lucky it will default back into safe mode rather than simply crash.

So first you need to find out exactly what hardware is in your computers, down to the smallest detail, and see if there are major or many differences. The more that differs, the less chance you can swap drives--unless you reinstall Windows on each one.

All your Microsoft activation concerns above apply mostly to desktops .... no worries with swapping HDs between similar Lenovo T61 and T61p laptop units, but probably not crash's X unit w/o the Nvidia discrete graphics. Otherwise, I've been there, done that, many times during emergencies .... like a keyboard failure w/o reinstalling the Operating System. The moral of the story is don't leave home w/o a spare box.