Upgrading my hardware wanting to move hard drives

Hi guys,

I am upgrading my computer i.e. CPU, GPU, MB, PSU and RAM and I want to take my two SSD's and HDD over into the new build. One of my SSD's contains windows 10 which was a free upgrade from windows 7 which I bought when I first built my computer.

How would I go about moving my drives over? Would it be a simple unplug from the old MB and plug into the new MB? Or should I uninstall all drivers and anything to do with old hardware first then plug into the new MB?

If I went about a clean install how would I do this because I have used the free upgrade to window 10? I don't really want to have to reinstall all my games and software (Obviously software related to old hardware would be removed and reinstalled for new hardware) but I don't also want to run into issues down the line because of just plugging my old drives into the new computer.

Thanks for the help guys

Welcome to the forum. Windows is very good at being put in new PC and sorting it's self out the only to find out is to try but first make a disk image so you can role back. The problem will be it won't activate as everything has changed. By rights you should buy a new windows licence

Samuria said:

Welcome to the forum. Windows is very good at being put in new PC and sorting it's self out the only to find out is to try but first make a disk image so you can role back. The problem will be it won't activate as everything has changed. By rights you should buy a new windows licence

So if I just remove all the old drivers and plug it into the new MB everything will be fine? Will I just need to go into the bios and boot it from that SSD?

DanWise said:

So if I just remove all the old drivers and plug it into the new MB everything will be fine? Will I just need to go into the bios and boot it from that SSD?

Yes. Although I wonder how you'd remove "all the old drivers"? Things like chipset drivers may not be available for uninstall. (Is using "sysprep" still an option? Haven't done that in years.)

About 4 weeks ago, I did a major swap, from an Intel MB to an AMD one, (I imaged the Win10 drive, as I expected the worst.) The new system booted up just fine from the old Win10 drive, replaced some drivers, and off I went. The only difficulty was activation. I was able to complete that by changing the license key to the last one I purchased, which was a Win8 upgrade that I bought in January of 2013. The original OS was retail.

I found that the new AMD mainboard was defective, so I replaced it with a different model with the same chipset. Again there were no booting issues, but I was unable to activate it with the old key, or by using the activation trouble shooter. I had to contact MS activation support, and get bounced to second level support. I had to do that twice before I got a tech who was able to assist me. (Ultimately, they gave me a new key.)

Long story short: you may be able to simply install the old OS drive in the new system without any preparation. It may activate. Or not.

I strongly recommend that you image the OS drive first.

You could also look into Acronis True Image. It includes a "universal restore" tool. Its name is misleading: it actually removes drivers from an existing Windows installation. It also can add new drivers during the process. It may be possible to get a USB rescue version without buying True Image. See this: https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...TczX25KMHl2RVU

bobkn said:

Yes. Although I wonder how you'd remove "all the old drivers"? Things like chipset drivers may not be available for uninstall. (Is using "sysprep" still an option? Haven't done that in years.)

About 4 weeks ago, I did a major swap, from an Intel MB to an AMD one, (I imaged the Win10 drive, as I expected the worst.) The new system booted up just fine from the old Win10 drive, replaced some drivers, and off I went. The only difficulty was activation. I was able to complete that by changing the license key to the last one I purchased, which was a Win8 upgrade that I bought in January of 2013. The original OS was retail.

Long story short: you may be able to simply install the old OS drive in the new system without any preparation. It may activate. Or not.

I strongly recommend that you image the OS drive first.

You could also look into Acronis True Image. It includes a "universal restore" tool. Its name is misleading: it actually removes drivers from an existing Windows installation. It also can add new drivers during the process.

I found that the new AMD mainboard was defective, so I replaced it with a different model with the same chipset. Again there were no booting issues, but I was unable to activate it with the old key, or by using the activation trouble shooter. I had to contact MS activation support, and get bounced to second level support. I had to do that twice before I got a tech who was able to assist me. (Ultimately, they gave me a new key.)

Hi thank you for the response, I think what I am going to do is make a backup and image of my old drive. I am then going to wipe that drive and plug it into the new MB and install windows 10 from a USB.

I will then move all my stuff over and just plug the other hard drives with games across.

DanWise said:

Hi thank you for the response, I think what I am going to do is make a backup and image of my old drive. I am then going to wipe that drive and plug it into the new MB and install windows 10 from a USB.

I will then move all my stuff over and just plug the other hard drives with games across.

If the games required installation (which generally gives Windows Registry entries) and they are installed on drives other than the OS drive, they probably will not run if you just connect the drives to a new PC. There may be ways to repair that, but it won't be trivial.

If you can get the current OS drive to boot in the new system, that will save you a lot of work.

Whatever you do I don't recommend Acronis software which I regard as poorly engineered. You could try using Macrium Reflect Redeploy instead https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/di...crium+ReDeploy

Activation will be an issue depending on the T&Cs of the original installation licence.

Steve C said:

Whatever you do I don't recommend Acronis software which I regard as poorly engineered. You could try using Macrium Reflect Redeploy instead https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/di...crium+ReDeploy

Activation will be an issue depending on the T&Cs of the original installation licence.

That's an interesting suggestion. Acronis True Image is reasonably easy to use, although I'm not thrilled with some of its design choices. (Example: I have to terminate some of its processes to allow me to copy an archive to a different drive. Acronis seems to believe that I need to be protected from myself. Probably true, but I can't accept that.) Some of the more "advanced" utilities they provide aren't very user friendly, at least for an amateur like me.