Question Building new PC, want to transfer HDD and all data

[PizzaSteve3902]

(I hope this belongs here)
Hello all.
I'm going to be building a new PC, and I have a ton of data on my current PC I want to transfer to my new one. I intend to just put the old HDD in the new PC, and use the OS on it (Windows 8.1 Retail. Yeah, yeah laugh at my choice of OS) to dual boot with a 500GB SSD with Windows 10 Pro. Is it possible to use Windows 10 to install new hardware drivers for 8.1 on the other hard drive perhaps? Any other way to do it? Would it be possible to reinstall 8.1 on the old HDD without wiping all the data? Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

 

[deediegraphiti]

sorry to be off topic, but why not just use the new drive with Win10 on it, and pull your data from the old hd with windows taking up a portion of it? You would just driver the Win10 version with your new hardware and reinstall programs (or transfer them), and read/write all your old data in place on the secondary drive.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Can you boot from the 8.1 HDD if you set it as primary boot device? Modern Windows versions such as 8.1 do a pretty good job of installing new drivers on bootup.
Windows 10 should find most drivers on initial bootup.
If I were you, I would just boot into windows 10 and navigate to your windows 8.1 HDD in file explorer. You can then rummage around and copy any needed files to your SSD. Your libraries are located under the "users" folder.

 

[PizzaSteve3902]

sorry to be off topic, but why not just use the new drive with Win10 on it, and pull your data from the old hd with windows taking up a portion of it? You would just driver the Win10 version with your new hardware and reinstall programs (or transfer them), and read/write all your old data in place on the secondary drive.

Part of the problem with that is the old drive is 1TB capacity and is probably around 75% full. I think I can shave about 50GB or more before the transfer, though.

 

[PizzaSteve3902]

Can you boot from the 8.1 HDD if you set it as primary boot device? Modern Windows versions such as 8.1 do a pretty good job of installing new drivers on bootup.
Windows 10 should find most drivers on initial bootup.
If I were you, I would just boot into windows 10 and navigate to your windows 8.1 HDD in file explorer. You can then rummage around and copy any needed files to your SSD. Your libraries are located under the "users" folder.

I'll see what happens when I get all the parts for the new PC.

 

[popatim]

Please make an image of the drive before trying anything that might render your drive unbootable on both systems.
You will need an external drive to store the image on.