Is Lenovo drive interchangeable with Dell?

[Thunder_Mountai]

The wife's Lenovo U530 laptop had a hinge freeze which disabled the computer. Removed the hard drive before sending it in for repair. Lenovo decided to refund our purchase price because the parts were not available. So, she went back to our old standby for years Dell and bought a refurb Inspiron 15 - 5548. Will the Lenovo hard drive fit the new Dell?

[APT]

Doh, sorry bob yes I meant 2.5". The SSD memory chips inside a 2.5" may be 2.5mm lol.

[bob_nestor]

APT wrote:
Thanks for the feedback, roadrunner. I pickup up this enclosure for 2.5mm drive interfacing. So far so good.

2.5mm? Wow, those disk drives just keep getting smaller and smaller.

I think you really meant 2.5 inches. Typically laptop drives come in two different height sizes though, 9.5mm and 12.5mm. Make sure the external case you get is the right size height wise or like me you'll have a small collection of empty drive cases.

[APT]

Thanks for the feedback, roadrunner. I pickup up this enclosure for 2.5mm drive interfacing. So far so good.

[road-runner]

APT wrote:
If there is data you want off it, then something like this cable

I happen to have that exact cable, and while it generally works, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. That's because instead of transparently sending the hard disc ID info to Windows, it sends its own ID. When you look at the disc in Device Manager, you see the Startech device info instead of the disc info. This bit me when I hung an Intel SSD on the cable and ran an Intel utility, which refused to work because it didn't see an Intel SSD in the system. Moved the SSD to an external SATA-to-USB enclosure and the utility ran.

[1492]

No, I wouldn't try to install the Levovo drive into the DELL as a OS system drive. You'll most likely blue-screen(BSOD) due to different hardware drivers. Doing a forced system repair may correct driver issues and allow you to boot, but MS will deactivate WIN 7 as it will detect the MB change from the registered hardware profile when WIN 7 was activated. It likely won't even work if you reinstalled it back into the Lenovo, without calling MS support.

MS allows some hardware changes, but definitely not the motherboard from a completely different manufacturer. Which is considered a new system requiring a separate WIN 7 license.

You can, however, retrieve your old files.

[Thunder_Mountai]

bob_nestor wrote:

AsheGuy wrote:

travisc wrote:
You should plug it in and try to boot it odds it will work depending on hardware generations it won't affect your data on there and should only a few screws. Windows activation may come up but it may work. This is from some one who spends lots of times on pc's

I agree, it's worth a try. Drivers can be downloaded and fixed. The Windows activation is the biggest issue probably as the change of hardware will key an activation request. A call to Microsoft will get one around a change of HD but maybe not a change of computer. But the worst that can happen is that it cannot be worked out.

Don't tell them you switched computers or motherboards, just tell them you swapped the hard drive. Small changes in HW configuration don't trigger the need for a new key from Microsoft and if you make small changes over time you can get past the need for a new key. But if you make a lot of HW changes all at once it will trigger the need to call Microsoft. So if you tell them you upgraded the disk, CDROM, memory, ethernet, monitor, keyboard, etc they're OK with that. But if you tell them you swapped the computer or motherboard they'll want to sell you a new license. And nowdays they'll want to get you upgraded to Win 10.

This sounds like some fun. Don't have "anything" else to do since I'm retired. Worst case I just put the Dell drive back in.

[bob_nestor]

AsheGuy wrote:

travisc wrote:
You should plug it in and try to boot it odds it will work depending on hardware generations it won't affect your data on there and should only a few screws. Windows activation may come up but it may work. This is from some one who spends lots of times on pc's

I agree, it's worth a try. Drivers can be downloaded and fixed. The Windows activation is the biggest issue probably as the change of hardware will key an activation request. A call to Microsoft will get one around a change of HD but maybe not a change of computer. But the worst that can happen is that it cannot be worked out.

Don't tell them you switched computers or motherboards, just tell them you swapped the hard drive. Small changes in HW configuration don't trigger the need for a new key from Microsoft and if you make small changes over time you can get past the need for a new key. But if you make a lot of HW changes all at once it will trigger the need to call Microsoft. So if you tell them you upgraded the disk, CDROM, memory, ethernet, monitor, keyboard, etc they're OK with that. But if you tell them you swapped the computer or motherboard they'll want to sell you a new license. And nowdays they'll want to get you upgraded to Win 10.

[AsheGuy]

travisc wrote:
You should plug it in and try to boot it odds it will work depending on hardware generations it won't affect your data on there and should only a few screws. Windows activation may come up but it may work. This is from some one who spends lots of times on pc's

I agree, it's worth a try. Drivers can be downloaded and fixed. The Windows activation is the biggest issue probably as the change of hardware will key an activation request. A call to Microsoft will get one around a change of HD but maybe not a change of computer. But the worst that can happen is that it cannot be worked out.

[travisc]

You should plug it in and try to boot it odds it will work depending on hardware generations it won't affect your data on there and should only a few screws. Windows activation may come up but it may work. This is from some one who spends lots of times on pc's

[Thunder_Mountai]

I ordered an external enclosure for the HD on eBay. It is a lot smaller that the full size drive I've been using for archive. Thanks for the help folks.

[strollin]

Even if you don't want/need anything on the old disk I would still recommend you get an enclosure for it so you can use it as an external drive. Assuming the laptop the drive came out of isn't ancient, the drive will be a 2.5" drive so it won't need an enclosure with a power brick but can be powered via USB. If the replacement laptop has USB 3.0 ports, get an enclosure that supports USB 3.0 and data transfers will be much faster. Something similar to this: Sabrent Ultra Slim USB 3.0 to 2.5-Inch SATA External Aluminum Hard Drive Enclosure

An external drive can be used to do backups or can be used to hold large files such as videos in order to keep the drive on your laptop from filling up.

[Jaxom]

If you want to save the data on the HDD, you could put it in an external drive enclosure and access the data that way. Get one that doesn't require a power cable, just USB.

[Thunder_Mountai]

Thanks for the replies. I hadn't thought about the BIOS and hardware drivers. Duh... Should have known better. The data is not a problem. She had Windows 8.1 set up just like she wanted it. I've got a copy of her favorites on a USB stick. But as you know you can't copy the tiles over from one computer to another.

[APT]

I agree with sch911 - even if it fits and connects and is detected by the BIOS, it probably will not boot. Why are you thinking about installing the drive from the Levono to old Dell? If there is data you want off it, then something like this cable would allow you to transfer/back up anything on that drive before formatting for other uses. Otherwise, spend $50 for a 120GB SSD for whatever OS you like. Use that other drive for storage via USB.