I have a workstation in a domain that has failed with hardware related issues. The actual hard drive is fine and is not the issue with with the workstation. Since we have spares of these workstations, in the exact hardware configuration as the old one, can I just pull the hard drive and put it another exact same workstation. The reason we want to do this is to avoid having to reinstall all the CAD based software or other software that takes too long for the user to wait to be installed.
Is there any issue with it needing to be prepped back onto the network?
I personally don't see an issue with just taking the drive out and putting it back into another workstation of the same hardware and leaving it on the network. Since there are not going to be two of these workstation with the same SID (domain related) on the domain, I don't see the need for sysprep'ing it.
Is there anything wrong with this process?
This won't be an issue. You only need to sysprep if the machine is going to be cloned and used side-by-side since then both machines would have the same domain SID, which will cause logon problems. If it's a straight replace, there's nothing to worry about.
I wont be a problem. Swap it..
Only thing you will probably run into is windows activation issue (sometimes).