Dead PC, move W10 to new PC?

My 11 year old rig died, brief specs

Intel S775 Core 2 Q6600 Quad-Core
8GB Geil 800MHz
ASUS 8800GT video card
SSD (OS) & HDD (data)

I am unable to boot. There is a flicker on the activity LED and the fans start, stop and sometimes start again.. PSU seems OK as case fans, DVD opens/closes but there are no BIOS beeps at all. I've widely read for ideas and tried most everything to fix but you might suggest that one thing I have missed... or it will be time for a new PC

Any suggestions on how I might resurrect appreciated.

If it is the case I buy a new PC, can I get my W10 Pro key off the old SSD/HDD and use that on a new install? I am sure I had W7 Pro and got the free upgrade to W10 Professional at the time.

My Wife uses this PC for email and web surfing.

OK I have done lots of reading and answering questions posed but please comment if I am mistaken in my beliefs

• OEM is for one PC only
• My W7 Ultimate OEM is worthless and I cannot use again.
• MS stopped free OS upgrades in 2016
• The MS account I have now is for my new (2015) PC listed in my system specs here. I cannot locate the original MS account of 11 years ago (if I had one) so I am unlikely to resurrect it. I read that a user could have linked their MS account and that might have helped in saving the OS licence key in the event of major hardware changes. Not likely here ...

Guessing I need a new OS for the new rig for my Wife.

I have one last question here: Perchance the old rig fires up and I am able to retrieve stuff, if I ever locate the licence key on the dead machine for the W10 Pro can I use this product key on my current PC?

Whiskey 7 said:

• MS stopped free OS upgrades in 2016

Not quite true. What MS stated (with my bold) is that "The Windows 10 free upgrade through the Get Windows 10 (GWX) app ended on July 29, 2016."

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...10-upgrade-faq

However, you can still upgrade a W7/8/8.1 machine to W10 using the install media made by the Media Creation Tool and it will get activated with a digital licence. You can also do a clean install of W10 with a retail W7/8/8.1 key and it will activate. Success has been reported by others on this forum as recently as last month.

Whiskey 7 said:

I have one last question here: Perchance the old rig fires up and I am able to retrieve stuff, if I ever locate the licence key on the dead machine for the W10 Pro can I use this product key on my current PC?

You don't need the old rig to fire up, just the HDD to be in working order. Put it in a caddy so you can connect it by usb to another machine. You can use ShowKeyPlus to retrive the key(s) from the drive. You click 'Retrieve key from backup' and point it to the Windows\System32\config\SOFTWARE registry hive on the old disk.

ShowKeyPlus - Windows 10 Forums

As you had the upgrade from W7 to W10 this will likely show the W10 key was the generic W10 Pro key ending in -3V66T, but it should also show the original W7 Pro key.

Hello & thanks Bree for the information. More reading to do I see.

I clean installed w10 on a w7 pc yesterday and it activated properly with w7 sticker key.

Bree said:

Not quite true. What MS stated (with my bold) is that "The Windows 10 free upgrade through the Get Windows 10 (GWX) app ended on July 29, 2016."

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...10-upgrade-faq

However, you can still upgrade a W7/8/8.1 machine to W10 using the install media made by the Media Creation Tool and it will get activated with a digital licence. You can also do a clean install of W10 with a retail W7/8/8.1 key and it will activate. Success has been reported by others on this forum as recently as last month.

Hi there
Still working as of YESTERDAY (Mar 26 2019) - Used an old Technet key for W7 Ultimate to create a new W10 Pro machine -- worked without a problem -- However I had to install W7 first to activate it, then you can install CLEAN a W10 pro and it works fine -- at least it did for me yesterday --I've done a few of these recently -- the old Technet / MSDN keys are all multiple use -- there's probably a limit somwhere but I'm sure 2 / 3 installs won't kill the servers.

Some people even report that they don't need to install the old W7/W8/W8.1 first -- just enter the key -- however I installed (doesn't take long - just install the basic windows --- don't bother with any extra apps) and activate it then you are "Good to Go" for W10 install.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Still working as of YESTERDAY (Mar 26 2019)...

That's good to know, thanks.

I have just the one 'never been upgraded' W7 machine left. I'm saving it up as a 'test' for the day (if it ever comes) that someone reports upgrade activation no longer works.