Also, if I have Windows already on that drive, do I need to get it again? It is actually from an older computer that has broken, so I hope to just take the hard drive and put it into a Framework Laptop 12. Will that work?
Welcome to the community!
Do you know what physical size the drive is? NVMe drives come in various lengths. The Framework 12 uses the shortest length; 2230. The more common size is 2280, which will not fit in the Framework 12.
The 2280 drives are about an inch wide and about three inches long (22mm by 80mm). The 2230 drives are closer to square, much smaller overall. (22mm by 30mm).
If your existing Windows install on that drive is from a pre-built machine with an “OEM” version of Windows, the activation may be tied to the hardware. So it may work, but I can’t say 100%. The other issue is that the install will be configured for that hardware. You can run the Framework 12 driver package once you put the drive in the computer and boot into Windows, and it would probably work okay, but you might be more likely to have driver issues and glitches than you would with a “fresh” install on your machine.
Still, if the drive is the right physical size, it might be worth a shot. Assuming it’s the correct size.
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I agree 100% with everything @BigT has said. I have one other cautionary note. If your ssd is 2230, and you have a usb key with the Framework Windows drivers plugged in at first boot, you can probably get Windows running. Since the FW12 is likely very different from the original machine, Windows will almost certainly become deactivated. You can run it deactivated, but might not want to. It seems you would probably need to buy a Windows license at some point.
Well, there were 2 reasons I was wondering about this: to save money and to preserve everything on my previous computer as if it hadn’t broken at all. I guess it would probably be better to get a new hard drive and Windows installation, but for the second reason, would it be possible to somehow just copy absolutely everything from the old hard drive onto the new laptop? Or could I connect it to the new laptop through some sort of hard-drive-to-USB converter and boot from that? Would that still cause driver issues? If not, I might just do that.
My old laptop was one that could not be updated to Windows 11. So i had a new edition of Windows 11 on this one. Then I installed all of the programs I had on the old computer. At no extra cost.
You could of course use your old code that you have on your old machine to make the new Winows 11 legal
Do you know if the drive is the right size for the Framework 12? In other words, is it a 2230 size drive? If it is, it’s probably worth popping it in and giving it a shot. If it’s not the right size, then you could buy an NVMe enclosure to see if you can either boot from it, or at least pull your files from it.