Can I swap a HD from T23 directly into T42?

[silo]

I just bought a T42 on eBay and I'm wondering if the HD from my T23 (it's a Hitachi 80G 7200rpm replacement drive) can just be pulled out of the T23 and put into the T42?

Or am I going to have to reinstall windows etc once I put the drive in?

I'm presuming the T42 takes the same kinds of drives that the T23 does, though somewhere along in here the IBM changed the drive size, though I think it was after the T42.

Any help/info much appreciated.

[RealBlackStuff]

Size-wise that HD would fit.
Whether Windows will work 'out of the box' is questionable, as a T42 uses different hardware from a T23. (Intel chipset, graphics, to mention but a few).
With a bit of luck you can run the Thinkpad Update utility and get all your hardware sorted in one go.
If not, you'll have to reinstall XP over itself, and then run the TP utility.
In either case, make a backup of all your personal (T23) files first, before you do the swap.

[danage]

the system will probably lock up when you boot it. you could probably boot it into safe mode, though.

i agree: best thing is to back up the data, do a clean reinstall on the t4x, then copy all your files back on there.

[carbon_unit]

If you download all the T42 drivers beforehand and put them on a cd you might get away with it but it will probably never really run properly. You would be better off to save your info and reinstall.

[richk]

I would guess that it will not boot. I expect that it is "too different".

[dcouzin]

A related question. Would the Windows from the T23 be legally installed in the T42?
I think not. Otherwise someone could go into business cloning his Windows loaded hard drive onto other peoples empty hard drives intended for similar machines.
I think it would it get caught as illegal the first time you sought a Windows update.

I wondered about this issue because I wanted to have two almost identical computers, the idea being to frequently clone the HD of the most recently used one onto the other's HD. I could buy two Windows disks, to feel legal, but if Windows was installed on A, the first cloning of A's HD onto B's HD puts an illegal Windows on B. I'd have to do all Windows updating on A. This would defeat the purpose of interchangeability. It seems Windows with two licenses, rather than two Windows disks, is required.

[silo]

A related question. Would the Windows from the T23 be legally installed in the T42?
I think not. .

I imagine the governing fact would be how many machines a given version of Win is installed on. In my case, for example, removing the disk from the T23 and putting it in the T42 does not change the status of that verion of Win that is on the hard drive. It's still only installed on one drive in one computer.

Your idea is something different entirely, though I have found the people manning the call-in-re-registration generally quite understanding, since I'm forever uninstalling and reinstalling Win and have about 7 or 8 licenses (though only 5 installations at the moment).

Just a guess though. I have the T42 now and may try installing the T23's HD tonight (it's an aftermarket 7200 / 80G Hitachi, and a big improvement on the 5400 40G thaqt's presently in the 42).

Cheers--