Laptop died, ordered a new one. Can I just swap the HD and continue?

[Sgood1971]

I searched for this, but could not find the right combination of terms to produce a result. I am not even sure if this is the right forum, but here is my situation in a nutshell.

My laptop (see my sig for specs) had the video card die last night. I have been expecting this for a while and have been saving to replace it. I ordered a new one (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1033241&Tab=0&NoMapp=0) from Tigerdirect. It's a refurbished off lease laptop but all that I can afford. My question is, can I just put my old HD from the gateway in it and continue on? Will all the different hardware be detected and reconfigured properly or will my old hardware settings cause conflict with the new stuff? Would it be better to start off with a new install? I don't want to install everything anew as I have spent countless hours getting everything just the way I want it.

Thanks for the help.

[blobaugh]

if the hardware specs are the same then you should not even notice the change. if they are different and you have a hardware autodetect util run that, but make sure you pay attention to the changes you make.

there was another thread like this a few days ago, but i cant find it now. it prob has more info

[Bowtie]

Without going and looking at what new laptop you bought I would say the odds are in your favor of a successful transplant. The only problem I have ever had was trying to swap hard drives in this Thinkpad. And that was only because of the hard drive cradle only fit IBM drives, not fujitsu or toshiba. Suse 9.1 should adapt without any problems. I've put Suse 9.0 through similar torture before and had no problems.

[Sgood1971]

Great, my hd is an IBM. I hope this works out. My original post had a link to the one I purchased on Tiger. Basically though, none of the hardware is the same.