Can i reuse my windows 10 installation disc ?

[Piaras Masterson]

Hey guys I am upgrading my motherboard, CPU and RAM and i have been told that i will need to reinstall windows 10. Is it possible to just use the windows 10 installation Disc to install the OS or will change these bites of hardware even require a reinstall of windows 10?

if i just connect the hard drive which already has windows 10 on it to the motherboard will it just work.

i feel like this is a silly question sorry

 

[Satan-IR]

Hey guys I am upgrading my motherboard, CPU and RAM and i have been told that i will need to reinstall windows 10. Is it possible to just use the windows 10 installation Disc to install the OS or will change these bites of hardware even require a reinstall of windows 10?

if i just connect the hard drive which already has windows 10 on it to the motherboard will it just work.

i feel like this is a silly question sorry

Best practice is to do a clean installation of Windows from scratch.

First test hardware outside case. If everything is OK put them in case. Do necessary setup and configurations in BIOS.

Then do a clean installation of Windows on the drive you want to be system drive. If you have an SSD and install Windows on that, unplug and disconnect any possible number of HDDs you might have before installation. (Power off and unplug PSU from wall outlet before disconnecting and re-connecting HDDs from and to the system.

Connect them back after you install Windows and motherboard, chipset, audio and GPU drivers.

Before you do this copy your files from the Windows (system) drive to another place, preferably to external media.

It would delete everything on the system drive (usually C:\) which can be a separate drive or just a partition depending on your hardware setup.

Windows installation usually involves formatting the drive/partition which would destroy all data on that drive/partition.

If you have Windows on a drive C:\ and you have other drives/partitions to which you can copy files from drive C: that you need to keep do that.

Then when you're sure you have everything you need install Windows on C:. If these other volumes (D: E: etc) are on separate drives and are not partitions on the same disk disconnect them and install Windows on the drive that has C:.

Anyway it's always safest to backup any important, personal or non-replaceable data/files (pictures, videos, etc.) somewhere else - like said above - on an external media HDD or USB flash, preferably it's best to have 2 copies on separate media if possible.

 

[geofelt]

It is possible that your current windows drive will boot using the new cpu and motherboard.
If it does, you can simply install the drivers that come with the new motherboard.
That approach preserves your current installed apps.

If you need/want to do a clean windows install, your windows 10 install disk can do the job.
They are all the same.
You might want to download a copy with current updates on it.
After install, you may need to fight the activation battle since ms thinks you are a pirate and running on two computers.
I think there is a process which I have not used that lets you deactivate windows on the original motherboard first.

 

[Piaras Masterson]

It is possible that your current windows drive will boot using the new cpu and motherboard.
If it does, you can simply install the drivers that come with the new motherboard.
That approach preserves your current installed apps.

If you need/want to do a clean windows install, your windows 10 install disk can do the job.
They are all the same.
You might want to download a copy with current updates on it.
After install, you may need to fight the activation battle since ms thinks you are a pirate and running on two computers.
I think there is a process which I have not used that lets you deactivate windows on the original motherboard first.