it has an SSD as the main/only storage option (in the SSD slot... with room for a standard laptop hard drive.) my other laptop was damaged but the HD is fine. Will programs on my old hard drive run? (for example microsoft office licenses, etc?) or would i need to format it?

and yes i know some of you are thinking these are stupid questions but i haven't ever messed with things like this.

10/28/2015 5:00:38 PM

You're going to want to install/run Windows (7 or 10) on that SSD and install programs as needed.

10/28/2015 5:28:08 PM

what do you mean? i mean i have an office license on my old laptop but not my new one. if i just install my old laptop HD as-is, is there a way to transfer it? (or can i get the key off of the old one or something?)

if it's not possible, i'm just as likely to spend some money on either a new hdd drive or an additional SSD. i don't need TONS of storage on this computer, but i'd like more than i currently have.

10/28/2015 5:31:17 PM

i also bought a new memory stick to add to the 8gig stick that came with it. (for total of 16)

10/28/2015 5:32:00 PM

Quote :

"or can i get the key off of the old one or something?"

Not sure...if your old laptop was still running there are ways, but given you've just got the old drive, I'm not sure if you can extract that or not. I take it you don't have it anywhere else? Where did you get it? What version is it?

Well this might work depending on your version: http://lifehacker.com/5809449/recover-windows-and-microsoft-office-product-keys-from-a-broken-computer-with-produkey

If your current SSD isn't big enough how much space do you need?

You'll probably need a hard drive dock to transfer the data (and pull your office license) from your old hard drive to the new one. $30 or maybe you can borrow one.

10/28/2015 6:00:35 PM

ah... i can still turn my old laptop on, but it has some overheating issues that a new heatsink/fan didn't help. (and it's like 5 years old anyway) and then when i was working on it one of my rugrats knocked it off the table and jacked up the power connection.

but i can still get on it. i'll look and see what version i have and all that and use that link to research. thanks!

10/28/2015 6:09:00 PM

if you're going to be able to turn it on use this one first: http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

10/28/2015 6:18:00 PM

It's easy to access data files, movies, pics, documents etc from your old HDD. But you'll have tons of conflicts and errors when you try to run many programs. Gone are the days when all of the files of a program are stored in one directory. You'll have to mess with manually moving a bunch of DLL files from the windows\system32 director and shit. Much easier just to torrent buy the programs where you don't have the original install discs and do clean installs.

10/28/2015 8:21:33 PM