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I have several partitions on an old Windows 7 laptop (2010) that I want to transfer to newer 2019 hardware. I understand there is a mismatch of driver configuration but I would like to see if Windows can boot up anyway and possibly reconfigure itself after detecting the changes.
Using the AOMEI Assistant Partition manager tool, I have cloned two partitions that appear to be system from the start of the HDD to a blank SSD in a USB enclosure.

However, the new laptop does not recognize the SSD drive in the boot menu.

I have turned off secure boot and UEFI mode is active. The arrangement is GPT on the SSD. Also, a USB drive containing Clonezilla is recognized in the same boot menu and boots OK. I have tried to set different boot flags for the partitions using gparted (boot/esp, boot_bls) but that hasn't worked.

Update: the system is used for real-time audio processing. The motivation behind this transplant is that much of the software is not available anymore, the hardware attached is unsupported in newer Windows, but the system is otherwise usable. The concern is that the hardware is slow and failure becomes more likely with age. Virtualisation may be an option, I would hope that latency would not be an issue.

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7
  • 1
    Trying to make Windows 7 boot on new hardware is not going to work.
    – harrymc
    Commented Jun 3 at 9:59
  • What kind of storage device was it before? SATA SSD/HDD? What is it now?
    – Daniel B
    Commented Jun 3 at 11:03
  • @DanielB - The new device is an SSD. A Windows 7 machine from 2010 would have been limited to a mechanical SATA II or SATA III drive.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jun 3 at 11:07
  • SSD or not is irrelevant. SATA or NVMe very much is.
    – Daniel B
    Commented Jun 3 at 11:22
  • 1
    New hardware normally does not support Windows 7 and if you must run Windows 7, you need to implement Windows 7 as a Virtual Machine.
    – anon
    Commented Jun 3 at 11:57

1 Answer 1

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First of all: Your Windows 7 can't boot from GPT. It has to be MBR.
(Windows 7 can boot from GPT, under the right conditions, but your existing Windows 7 needs modifications to do that.)
Second: The USB enclosure is getting in the way too. It adds another layer of hardware for which you don't have drivers AND getting Win7 to boot from USB is another problem all by itself.

If you have the SSD setup as MBR, Bios configured for CSM/Legacy mode and the SSD is connected directly to the computer, you may possibly (big maybe) be able to get Windows 7 to boot in "Safe mode".
From there you can try to install the proper motherboard drivers and SATA/NVMe drivers, provided these exist for Windows 7.
In some cases a Windows 8 driver (or very early Windows 10 driver that still uses the old driver model) can also work on Windows 7.

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  • The first point is not correct. Windows 7 does support GPT, and requires GPT for UEFI boot.
    – Daniel B
    Commented Jun 3 at 11:00
  • @Ramhound Exactly. However, we can safely deduce a 2010 installation is in BIOS mode and MBR. The OP cloned two partitions that appear to be system to a GPT drive. This will never work and there's no way around it, not to mention the total nonsense of this project.
    – ChanganAuto
    Commented Jun 3 at 11:19
  • @ChanganAuto Converting Windows from BIOS/CSM + MBR to UEFI + GPT is actually quite trivial. It needs some more work than just cloning, of course.
    – Daniel B
    Commented Jun 3 at 11:20
  • @DanielB - It is indeed trivial. It's more difficult if you are running Windows 7 since only third-party software exists instead of MBR2GPT which only exists if you are running Windows 10. It technically exists on Windows 11 but Windows 11 itself does not support Legacy Mode, so it can only be used, to convert the non-system disk.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jun 3 at 11:24
  • @DanielB Indeed but not in this context, only in the context of the original MBR drive (or a full drive clone) with mbr2gpt. But the OP already has those 2 partitions in a GPT drive so it can't be done. And in any case Windows 7 does NOT support the hardware where the OP wants to run it.
    – ChanganAuto
    Commented Jun 3 at 11:24

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