Swapping Hard Drives

ok thanks for the help. Oh one more thing...I use the fingerprint reader with the pre-boot manager on both systems. Do I need to clear that out too?

Also if I remove the drivers won't they just reinstall before i get the hard drive out of the old system?

I didn't install windows 7, it came with the m6500 silver unit. How do I know which drivers to remove? The only difference that I know of is the nVidia, in the silver unit I have the 2800M, and in the covet I have the 3800. Won't it just recognize the newer version and install the drivers? Why do I need to remove them?

Do i just simply remove the drivers for the video card through the device manager? Other than that the system is pretty much the same. Can I just browse through the device manager on both systems to make sure everything else is the same? Now if I want to put them back after this I would need to go through the same process, correct?

Before you even think of trying, make sure you have a complete backup of the system.  Remove the drivers for any hardware not in the transfer-to system BEFORE you put the drive in the system (you can load the proper drivers once you've installed the drive).  If the systems are similar enough, it should work that way.

Note:  if Windows 7 was installed by you (using a retail key) it will almost certainly trip a request for activation once you move the drive).

Yes, that's how to remove them.  As long as you don't reboot the system again (just shut down), no, the drivers won't reload.

Remove the video drivers before swapping the drives.  Doing otherwise is an invitation to a disaster - you want to get rid of the entries in the registry for the old video chip. It is true that the system will then ask for the drivers - but DO NOT move the drive with the old drivers in place.

Correct.

Now if I don't put the drive from the covet into the silver unit then I won't need to do anything to that one, right? I might just leave it as it in case I need to put it back into the covet. Is there anything I need to do with this hard drive other than unplugging it and just plugging it back in to the covet unit?

Same thing goes - remove all drivers for hardware not in the destination system, and deactivate the fingerprint reader or any other TPM-based security.

Yes.  If you have any of the trusted platform module set up, by all means - you must deactivate that as well (and remove any passwords on the hard drive BEFORE you move it as well, if you've a BIOS password set up).

But if I don't plan on putting that in the other system I won't need to do anything to the drivers, correct?