Windows "swapover"

Keod2 · 31 Dec 2011 at 22:12

Is it possible to take my hard drive and thus Windows out of my old PC and put it in my new PC, will that work?

I've heard somewhere that windows knows if you switch motherboards or something?

Dano · 31 Dec 2011 at 22:16

It might work, it might not, but my advice (and others will agree) is that you should do a re-install of windows.

Keod2 · 31 Dec 2011 at 22:24

Well the idea of me doing that is so I dont need to buy a new HDD. If its my old one theres no need to reinstall windows?

Dano · 31 Dec 2011 at 22:27

If your drive is partitioned there's no need to buy a new one, if it isn't can you borrow an external drive to back data up to or is it feasable to back it up to DVD's? You really are asking for grief by attempting to swap windows to another system.

Keod2 · 31 Dec 2011 at 22:40

noo, Im not explaining myself right. Ummm my other system doesnt have a HDD. My old one does, and my old one has Windows on it, I want to just use my old HDD I just wanted to know if that would work or if there would be some weird thing that would stop me? Like would windows run normally on my new system?

Dano · 31 Dec 2011 at 22:46

No, I understood that and I still recommend a fresh install as it may or may not work.

Keod2 · 31 Dec 2011 at 22:50

Wait, Ive found a good way to explain it:

I have a old desktop, the desktop has a hard drive with windows installed on it.
I want to remove the hard drive from my old desktop, and put it in my new desktop.

My new desktop doesnt have a hard drive atall, as I want to use my old desktops hard drive.

Would windows work correctly as Ive switched it from my old PC to my new one?

Dano · 31 Dec 2011 at 22:51

Dano said:
It might work, it might not, but my advice (and others will agree) is that you should do a re-install of windows.

As I already stated...