Question: My laptop running Windows 7 Ultimate (non OEM) died on me today and it has tons of stuff on it - my projects, Visual Studio and office installations, etc. etc.

I am getting a new laptop from somewhere and was wondering if I could just unplug the hard disk from my original (dead) machine and plug it into the new one.

I remember trying this once with Windows XP (on a desktop) and the OS crashed on boot and I had to reinstall everything again.

I have read about [sysprep](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd799240%28WS.10%29.aspx#CommonSysprepScenarios) but by the looks of it, it can be used only when the host computer is alive and kicking -- which mine isn't.

My old laptop was a Compaq Pressario v3000 (3 years old) on an AMD and the new one is going to be a new dual core Intel HP laptop.

Answer: 
Ihe drivers in use are completely different between your old computer and the new one.

You can plug it in and turn it on, but be prepared to spend a lot of time updating drivers, if it works at all.

You should try booting into safe mode first, and then update your chipset drivers first. HP should have a list of drivers for your machine and the order to install them.
At work I can take a Ghost image of an IBM T60 and apply it to a HP EliteBook and get it to run. The first thing I do is once I have put the original image on the new laptop I run a repair on it. After the repair, that's when the fun starts in terms of updating the drivers. So yes, I absolutely think this can be done.