# Moving the system disk between computers



## lukeido (Sep 13, 2011)

What will happen if I install FreeBSD 7.2 on a computer with Pentium4 ~3.2GHz and a Nvidia 8400gs with onboard net controller then move the hard disk (with FreeBSD 7.2 installed) into another computer with an Athlon x2 ~2.4GHz?
Will FreeBSD 7.2 work on the AthlonX2?


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## ikreos (Sep 13, 2011)

As long as the proper drivers are installed beforehand I don't see why it would be a problem. You would have to reconfigure it though.


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## lukeido (Sep 13, 2011)

ikreos said:
			
		

> As long as the proper drivers are installed beforehand I don't see why it would be a problem. You would have to reconfigure it though.



You have to consider that it is my first time with FreeBSD :\ :\


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## ikreos (Sep 13, 2011)

The handbook, man pages, and release notes for your version of FreeBSD should contain everything you need to do all that.


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## Sylhouette (Sep 13, 2011)

FreeBSD needs to configure the hardware it has.
So if you install it on PC a with a 3com network card and an NVIDIA graphics card, then inserting the disk into a pc with an intel network card and a ATI Radeon graphics card, things will not run.

The most important thing is to find out what network card is in the old machine and in the athlon.

FreeBSD uses the module names for the network cards.

3com cards are configured as xl(x) cards as where an intel probably is the em(x)
in your file /etc/rc.conf file you will see something like:

```
ifconfig_em0="inet 192.168.50.200  netmask 255.255.255.0"
```
where em is my network card.

Maybe you should try PC-BSD instead.
You can try out things easier and start installing FreeBSD later on when you are more familier with the system and it's locations of config files.
And why not insert the disk in the athlon and then install?

regards,
Johan


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## lukeido (Sep 13, 2011)

Sylhouette said:
			
		

> 3com cards are configured as xl(x) cards as where an intel probably is the em(x)
> in your file /etc/rc.conf file you will see something like:
> 
> ```
> ...


So, you have intel, isn't it?




			
				Sylhouette said:
			
		

> Maybe you should try PC-BSD instead.
> You can try out things easier and start installing FreeBSD later on when you are more familier with the system and it's locations of config files.


Uhm,ok. I'll try it.



			
				Sylhouette said:
			
		

> And why not insert the disk in the athlon and then install?



Actually the Athlon doesn't have a Video Card yet.


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## kisscool-fr (Sep 13, 2011)

From what i can say, it should work with basic install (without X and with GENERIC kernel) after a little reconfiguration (basically in rc.conf).

You will need to reconfigure the network card if the chipset is different
And ... and i don't see anything else. 

At boot time Freebsd will detect the new hardware, and start normally. 

Ah maybe one point to take care, the harddrive or the harddrive controller (ide, ata, sata, ahci)


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## jb_fvwm2 (Sep 13, 2011)

A good chance you'd have to edit the fstab after mounting all filesystems manually.  Tricky if one has not done it before. (Can happen even during version upgrades v5 > v6 etc sometimes)


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