HDD still have Windows 8 after rebuild?

1uke · 2 Mar 2014 at 10:18

I had a motherboard and psu die 5 months ago and ended up just adding the HDD that had oem windows 8 on from that pc into my sons pc that already had a working HDD and windows 8 to get all the files of etc.

If I take the HDD out and give it a new motherboard/cpu will the windows 8 oem work and activate?

hawkhench · 2 Mar 2014 at 14:13

Unless it's the same model of motherboard you're better off with a full re-install (as drivers will change). If you have the OEM disk and the key, they will activate fine on a reinstall.

1uke · 2 Mar 2014 at 19:00

I have a oem disk but not sure I can remember or find the key. Is there a way to get it of my sons pc that the hdd is currently in even though its not running that pc?

Idleman · 2 Mar 2014 at 19:14

What mobos are we talking about? AMD or Intel? What socket?

melvis · 2 Mar 2014 at 19:18

you can get the key from a linux live cd, the key shows up in plaintext through an acpidump with the following command

acpidump -b -t MSDM | dd bs=1 skip=56 2>/dev/null;echo

[EDIT]
My bad, misread, this will only work for the motherboard with the oem license on it.

1uke · 2 Mar 2014 at 21:34

Idleman said:
What mobos are we talking about? AMD or Intel? What socket?

The HDD was originally in a intel machine and is in a intel machine atm. But I was thinking of making a AMD rig with the HDD.

hawkhench · 3 Mar 2014 at 09:08

In that case you'd almost definitely need to do a re-format and re-install.

Have at look at this guide for advice on "finding" your Windows key.

1uke · 3 Mar 2014 at 09:16

Yeh I was always going to do a fresh install as changing motherboard. But I wasn't sure if the windows would reactivate as been out of use for a while and going in almost new pc.

hawkhench · 3 Mar 2014 at 11:50

You might have to ring a phone number and enter some numbers but after that it should re-activate fine