Moving old HDD to a new PC, few questions :)

[Kelso]

Hey there, well as title says Im wanting to move my current HDD to a my new PC when it comes, however Im a little unsure of wether its going to work.

Namely will the OS be functional on the new PC and will all my stuff thats on it still be working on the new machine? such as steam and other games outside of it.

Or is it just best if i completely wipe it, stick it in and then reinstall everything from scratch?

Any advice would be welcome I realy dont want to download near 300 gb of games again :P

Oh an if these are realy silly questions to you guys, then sorry but Im a bit a newb with all this.

[Rakk]

As long as you're planning on using the harddrive as the OS again then it 'should' work perfectly fine, if your new machine is also going to have a hard drive in it already, you'll need to change the boot list in the BIOS so that it knows which one you want to boot from though.

[Corfate]

Personally, I'd do a fresh install of the OS and everything. All your old drivers will still be on it, old virus's etc. that way, when you get a new pc you can install exactly what you want

You'll also probably have to ring up Microsoft as that copy of windows isn't activated for that new pc.

[Kelso]

As long as you're planning on using the harddrive as the OS again then it 'should' work perfectly fine, if your new machine is also going to have a hard drive in it already, you'll need to change the boot list in the BIOS so that it knows which one you want to boot from though.

Yeh its coming with a hardrive already with it, so I would need to put my old one in its place and juts move the new one down. Is changing the boot list in the BIOS eay todo? like is there a step by step guide online anywhere?

Thanks for the reply btw

[keynes]

Yeh its coming with a hardrive already with it, so I would need to put my old one in its place and juts move the new one down. Is changing the boot list in the BIOS eay todo? like is there a step by step guide online anywhere?

Thanks for the reply btw

If it is coming with a hard drive where the OS is already installed you don't need to change anything in the bios unless you experience problems booting to windows once the 2nd HDD is installed, I'd format the HDD before transfering it to the new machine.

[Rakk]

If it is coming with a hard drive where the OS is already installed you don't need to change anything in the bios,

If he was wanting to use the old drive as the boot drive and have the new one as an extra drive he would though, otherwise it'd default to the drive that comes with the machine.

Kelso, if you're ordering the PC with an OS and were going to be using that as the boot drive (ie. the one that PCS put Windows onto) you will need to reinstall all your stuff for it to work, because it will not just work from your old drive without the old drive being the main boot drive.
So which drive (old or new) were you planning on being the OS drive?

[keynes]

If he was wanting to use the old drive as the boot drive and have the new one as an extra drive he would though, otherwise it'd default to the drive that comes with the machine.

I misunderstood the thread , you are right.

[Kelso]

No its not coming with an OS, so I gather that means it 'should' work?

Oh im planning on using my current one as the boot drive.

[keynes]

No its not coming with an OS, so I gather that means it 'should' work?

There would be an OS installed in the main drive, you'll need to do a clean installation of windows.

[Rakk]

There will be Win7 (non-activated) installed on the new drive whether you ordered it or not - this is so PCS can test the machine, so it will automatically try to boot from that drive.

You will have to add the new drive and then change the boot priority list so it can boot from your 'old' drive.
When you go into the BIOS it shouldn't be too tricky to find out where to change the boot priority, though I can't give exact instructions due to the fact I haven't done it in a while, and BIOS's can differ slightly anyway.