I have an NVMe drive from my old laptop that's broken, and it has a Windows OEM installation. I'm curious if I can use it to boot my new PC. I understand I might need to activate Windows again, but I'm also concerned about compatibility issues with drivers. I've heard that Windows 11 is pretty flexible and can download the necessary drivers during boot-up. Will this setup work?
3 Answers
It should work fine! Just be ready to reinstall Windows if it doesn't boot up properly. This might happen if the new hardware needs different drivers than what your old laptop had.
Expect a slower boot the first time it runs on your new PC since it'll be downloading drivers for the new setup. But overall, it should boot without too many issues.
Yes, but make sure you have the encryption key since the drive will likely be encrypted by default with Windows 11. You can find this info linked to your Windows account online.
What if I don’t have a Windows account? I don’t think BitLocker is enabled, but my old laptop had Secure Boot enabled because I needed that for some games.