Swapping Laptops

LunarMist

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Is there any problem with switching hard drives or images between notebook PCs? The two units are the exact same model with pre-installed OS, so I'm hoping that there should not be any activision issues. I'd like to keep them in different cities and just bring the data back and forth occasionally.
 

MaxBurn

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Well I think there are a bunch of things like NIC MAC addresses etc that tie it down to specific hardware. Maybe being OEM that might not apply but I think it is risky.
 

LunarMist

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So the internet connections will need to be reconfigured?
 

ddrueding

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You may need to reactivate every time. The NIC MAC and CPU ID are some of the things that are checked, and they will be different.
 

Handruin

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Make sure the BIOS versions are the same and the same features are enabled.
 

LunarMist

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The old notebook was cheap. I can't help but give it a try. I forgot to mention that the OS is XP. There are both XP and Vista restore DVDs. If it does not work out I may install Win 7 since there are drivers available. (The series was discontinued only in February.)
 

Howell

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You might get better results with using some virtualization and transport the VM back and forth.
 

LunarMist

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Thanks. Unfortunately I am far too clueless to do so.
 

Will Rickards

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We sometimes have dead laptop issue here and we swap the hard drive into another of the exact same model. XP boots without issue and there is no activation that I remember.
I think you can do it.
 

LunarMist

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It is not normal. Windows takes 6-8 minutes to boot, then cannot be closed. Battery is dead. Cannot boot from USB. :grr:
 

LunarMist

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It is still struggling, but getting there. I'm really wondering about the HD. It sounds raspy and the HDTach read rate is only 39 MB/sec. Seek time is 19.5 sec.

Bluetooth is not recognized. I guess each one is uniquely different. WI-FI is picking up the Mormon 6 channel, so that is probably working.
 

LunarMist

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The CPU is the same (L7100) and I think the amount of RAM is the same (4GB). HD is an unknown small variety. I have not opened up the unit yet since HD replacement is not so simple.
 

ddrueding

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Well, that drive certainly is some crap. The CPU (1.2Ghz) isn't exactly a screamer, either. Amazing that those specs would be combined with 4GB of RAM...
 

time

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Not at all. The extra RAM allows more data cache which means less disk accesses - obviously a good idea in this case ...

The Lenovo X300 used this ultra-low-power CPU in the interests of exceptional battery runtime. However, it also came with an SSD drive that makes the overall package quite usable. Is this a bastardized X300?

In any case, there's no way it should take any XP machine several minutes to boot, regardless of how poor the disk subsystem is. Lunar, you need to reload it without the crap. You may as well be running Vista with that sort of terminal sluggishness.
 

LunarMist

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Well, that drive certainly is some crap. The CPU (1.2Ghz) isn't exactly a screamer, either. Amazing that those specs would be combined with 4GB of RAM...

They were new ~$2K models in the 12" <3 lb. class exactly 2 years ago. 2-4GB RAM was typical with Vista and the XP was a free downgrade option on DVD. The later versions had the 1.4GHz CPU.
 

LunarMist

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Not at all. The extra RAM allows more data cache which means less disk accesses - obviously a good idea in this case ...

The Lenovo X300 used this ultra-low-power CPU in the interests of exceptional battery runtime. However, it also came with an SSD drive that makes the overall package quite usable. Is this a bastardized X300?

In any case, there's no way it should take any XP machine several minutes to boot, regardless of how poor the disk subsystem is. Lunar, you need to reload it without the crap. You may as well be running Vista with that sort of terminal sluggishness.

Obviously the previous installation was full of crap (I saw something about Norton eventually). I was able to re-image it and the computer is fairly normal, though I will have to replace some apps that cannot be used in multiple systems.
 

LunarMist

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The upper 1.24GB above 2GB is allocated to a RAM drive.
 

LunarMist

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I should have said that the upgrade from 500GB @ 5400 to the 7200.4 was useless. (There was no 640GB drive at the time.) I suspect that the newer 7200 RPM Hitachi is faster than the Seagate. However, I'm more interested in a 1TB drive now.
 

LunarMist

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I wish there were a way to remove the OD and replace it with a second HD. Damn.
 

MaxBurn

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If I can do that in my dell there should be a way to do it on that computer.
 

LunarMist

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The first one looks like the right type. If only it were available here for normal sale.
 
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