Transfer HDD from X60 to X200 - Painful?

[pedd]

Hi guys,

Apologies if this is answered elsewhere. I've spent the last ten minutes searching and not found anything that answers my specific question.

I'll be brief:

I have and love an old X60 which I've nurtured and upgraded (more RAM, new battery, SSD, Win 7). I love the X60 so much that my gaze is turning (as my gaze is wont to do) to a slightly younger model. I've noticed X200s going for acceptable prices on eBay and am thinking that they represent a good value upgrade. My question is this:

Would it be very painful for me if I tried to download all the X200 drivers to a folder on the SSD in my X60 and then simply move it into an X200? To my (simple) mind, there might be a load of 'found new hardware - please show me the driver) messages on boot, and perhaps a bit of cleanup after that, but beyond that, it should be okay. If that's way off the mark, I'd rather find out from you kind souls now than later when I try to do it.

I know that a clean install would be preferable, but I have a load of work software configured and finding the time to sort that lot out would be tricky.

Please feel free to be as brutal as you like if this is a stupid idea.

Thanks in advance!

[Tasurinchi]

Well, several months ago (around end of April) we did something very similar with a friend of mine. I "leased" him a X200s instead of the X61s he had (also mine).

Out of fun we just moved the SSD from one machine to another. Installed was Win7 Ultimate with all latest drivers. After the swap, Windows updated itself automatically and after a couple of restarts everything was working perfectly again.

Then he run Lenovo System update and installed the rest of the missing drivers. X200s is perfectly working since then.

Having said this, I don't know if I would recommend to do the same to anybody. It's still risky if you have a productive machine.

[pedd]

Brilliant Tasurinchi, thanks very much for basically telling me what i wanted to hear

Knocking the thing flat is still an option, so there's nothing to lose other than time.

[Tasurinchi]

You're welcome! But don't blame me if your system goes south

I'll tend to do clean installs every time I can. The case of this friend of mine was special, since he was too lazy to reinstall all his tools. He got lucky I guess

[rjwilmsi]

A direct move over of the SSD should be OK. Problems tend to arise if key hardware is different e.g. moving from ATI to NVIDIA graphics. In this case you should be OK.

How about you use the Windows 7 whole system backup first, so that if you put the SSD in the X200s and Windows just blue screens or corrupts the install, you can at least restore back to your start point easily?

[jayton4]

Windows 7 works very well moved from system to system. Windows XP is a huge pain, and in some cases not possible.

[pedd]

Well, ordered my X200 this afternoon, so I'll be finding out soon enough

Will report back with my findings, it may be of use to someone else.

Thanks!

[pedd]

Just a bit if an update on this (in case anyone was waiting!). I gave it a quick go, went straight into startup repair (something I've never had much joy with before) and then I realised that this was a 32bit install of Windows 7 I was trying to migrate, and I want to (eventually) have 8 gig of RAM in there, so I abandoned the whole idea. It actually came with a clean install of 64bit Win 7 Ultimate, so I'm tempted to try and migrate that onto the SSD, but for peace of mind, I might clean install the copy of Win 8 I've had salted away for a rainy day.

Thanks for the feedback guys! I'm sure I'll be back on soon to ask about something else