Dead laptop, good HDD can I install from it

[theDaveTheRave]

I hope the title say is all.

I 'had' an old laptop (acer Aspire 1860, 500mb ram, 686 processor, 80GB HDD).

The whole thing decided to die on me (I had hoped I would be able to just replace the power inlet board, but no luck).

I got a box for putting the HDD into, and I have all my data. I can even run my old Ubuntu from that HDD by plugging the box into the USB, it works surprisingly well in fact.

My only real question is can I copy the old data off of that HDD onto a new laptop and still have it work. I'm expecting the answer to be no.

Thanks in advance.

David

[gufide]

You can, from another computer, copy the /home/username folder which contain all your data and settings. All you will have to do is reinstall your applications. To copy it, simply plug them with sata wire or if you can, simply plug it with usb wire. I made my /home directory on another partition so I can format my openrating system without loosing any data, and I think everybody should, because it saved me a lot of time.

[theDaveTheRave]

To be honest it was more of a 'silly question' out of curiosity. I know about the separate home partitions, and it has saved me on on more than one occasion when I've needed to do a re-install for any reason.

David