Windows HD in a Mac?

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I have to use a Windows computer for work and I have a Macbook as my personal. Is it possible to take the mac hd out and place the Windows one in the mac without having to wipe it? Please let me know. Thank you!
 

chscag

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Yes, you can put the Windows drive in your Mac provided it was the same size and type that your Mac uses. However, you won't be able to do anything with it..... :Smirk:

Why don't you just use Boot Camp to create a partition on your Mac and then load Windows on it? Not sure I understand what it is you're trying to do?

Regards.
 
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Its setup with work configurations, so I need everything and the setup it has. So no I cannot just pop in the hd and have it work is what you are saying? There is no way?
 

chscag

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Yep, that's what I'm saying. There is no way you can just pop it in and have it work.

Regards.
 
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chas_m

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Once you set up a windows environment on your Mac (using Boot Camp or one of the virtualisers), you could perhaps use something like WinClone to create an image of your Win machine as-is and somehow transfer that to the Windows partition on your Mac, though I wouldn't have any experience on exactly how to do that ...
 
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Or perhaps set all of the options to be the same? That isn't very hard to do either. Very much like my husband... this need for everything to be 100% identical in Windows or it apparently won't work.
 
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Just so you know it isn't just a Mac problem... If you took that hard drive out and dropped it into another random Windows machine it would likely not work perfectly if at all because there are hundreds of different graphics cards, network adapter, DVD units and each one has its own driver which your windows was setup with for the machine it is on...

And even if you had a computer at home that was configured exactly as the one at work the pop up with a Windows authorization issue would become a problem because windows checks serial numbers on hard drives, CPUs and verifies that the graphics cards are the same.

Whenever it sees a different hard drive or graphic card or processor it trips a little flag and once certain number of flags are tripped it has to be reauthorized... Even if you bought an identical computer to the one you have at work this problem would pop up and get you. It is microsofts method of keeping people from buying one copy of windows and then putting it on multiple machines.

Even though it would likely reauthorize itself the first time you made the switch it would also track that windows serial number and when you dropped it back into the old machine it would have to do the reauthorization again... at some point you would not be able to reauthorize it without talking to microsofts help line at which point you would find that Windows was authorized for one computer only and they would advise you to purchase another copy of windows for your home machine.
 

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