Swapping hard disks between computers

[Onesimus]

I have two computers: Computer A and Computer B. I dual boot Computer A with Ubuntu and Windows XP. However, Computer B is a faster computer but with a small hard disk.

What I would like to do is simply swap the hard disks between the two computers, but I am concerned this is going to cause me problems - i.e will Ubuntu recognise the different hardware and respond accordingly or will the change in hardware freak it out.

I know that the Windows XP will freak out with hardware abstraction layer stuff and hence I know that I will have to repair/modify the XP installation. Not sure entirely whether XP licencing will complain that it now has a completely different set of hardware and consider that I have pirated the software. Is my XP licence fixed to the hard disk or the motherboard ?

It would be nice to know prior to switching what will happen with Ubuntu and licensing issues around XP.

[bDerrly]

Ubuntu should be in fairly decent shape after a complete change in hardware. The biggest issues you may run into are kernel drivers that are not present (thought I doubt this since the default installs have just about every driver known to man). So much is autodetected these days that I doubt you'll run into any problems.

XP will cry, just delete it.