merging computers

[brazen ocean]

Looking to help my father in law. He has a laptop which is now broken and a desktop which works. Both had windows installed on them. Is it as simple as putting the hard-drive from the laptop into the desktop or do I need to do some more configuring

[static flume]

it should be that simple

[brazen ocean]

Ok just need to figure out then the password for the desktop they don't use it much and what they thought was the password and various combos locked me out

Would the mother board have any effect in it other then cables as it is a prebuild

[split ether]

It may lack a second sata data cable and may lack a second sata power cable from the psu

[static flume]

i think he just wants to replace the drive temporarily

[split ether]

It's possible but just saying if they wanna use both drives

[static flume]

data retrieval is easier if you boot into the drive

as well as he dose not require extra cables

[brazen ocean]

There is 2 sata power one was for the cd player in the computer my plan was to just unhook and plug into hdd

[static flume]

ye

[brazen ocean]

Okay and I should then be able to access files from both drives? Or would I need to do anything on the one that hasn't opened the op system

[static flume]

you should just be able to see the other drive

[brazen ocean]

I wouldn't be able to access the files

[static flume]

you can access the files