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Can I use the HDD from my laptop in a self-built PC? (lemmy.world)

submitted 7 months ago by berryjam@lemmy.world to c/buildapc@lemmy.world

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Laptop battery recently died, and I'm planning a new PC build anyway, so I'm wondering: can I just remove the HDD from my laptop and connect it to the motherboard? Would I need any extra parts or hardware? I'm guessing no, but it's hard to research on my phone. Any guidance is appreciated :) thanks!

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[–] General_Shenanigans@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Keep in mind that although there won’t be a problem getting that drive to work with that motherboard, you will likely need to reinstall your OS. If it’s Windows, you will also need to worry about licensing and activation.

[–] berryjam@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for pointing that out! I'm not too worried, I figure I can configure the BIOS to boot from my hdd

[–] elbarto777@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's not OP's point. The point is that you can't just move the hard drive from your laptop to your desktop and expect your old OS installation to just work.

[–] berryjam@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Oh, why not? Is it not similar to booting from a USB drive? The OS is Arch Linux and the drive is not encrypted.

[–] elbarto777@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Oh, I assumed too much. I thought you had Windows installed, so I don't know how similar Linux is in these circumstances.

I would assume that a local installation may have configuration that is unique to your laptop's hardware.

The OS may be smart enough to recognize that some things changed and adapt accordingly. But some old drivers and config settings may still unnecessarily linger around and waste disk space or CPU cycles. And hardware driver conflicts could also lead to system crashes.

Maybe I'm wrong, though?

[–] berryjam@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

Hmm, I do have some battery-specific configs, but they shouldn't make a difference, and they're trivial to deactivate.

The Linux kernel generally includes drivers for anything you could want, so I'm not concerned about crashes related to drivers.

Thanks for the concern anyway :)