Do I need a new harddrive?

[finity]

I finally replaced my mother board and power supply. What happened was I plugged a P4 connector in the wrong way (yes it fit). Now when I try and start the computer it will go into BIOS fine, but after that there's an unnerving sound coming from the hard drive. Do I need to reinstall any drivers for this new mobo (it's the exact same model/brand as the old one)? I tried running chkdsk/f in dos mode, and it said something like "21,000 long chain errors" then after that chkdsk comes back really fast and normal. but it still won't boot. I'm worried because the version of Win7 I bought might only work on 1 or 2 hard drives. I hope it's 2 so I don't have to buy another Win7 + a hard drive. I might have a spare HD somewhere.

 

[boosted1g]

The windows is not tied to the hard drive, you could swap the hard drive and reinistall or image windows 100 times with no issues.

If you had to replace the motherboard and cpu then Microsoft would need you to call them and get them to reactivate it because the system would see it as a completely different computer.

And you can not take a hard drive from one computer and put it in a different computer with different specs, this would be a violation of Microsoft licensing

 

[boosted1g]

Based on the errors in checkdisk I would replace the hard drive

 

[finity]

I didn't replace the CPU, and I assume it's still fully functional. So even if all the drivers are installed on the hard drive, and I replace the mobo with an identical one, do I still need to reinstall the OS? If the CD key for my win7 OS doesn't work, what would you recommend I do? Call microsoft and ask for a new cdkey? What do I say?

 

[boosted1g]

If it is the exact same motherboard then you wont need to reformat
If it was a slightly different board then you would just need to load the different drivers

Since the boards are the same as far as Microsoft is concerned it will not flag anything at all.

If say your PC was 3.4 years old and you replaced the motherboard and cpu with a modern one then it would read the upgrades as a new computer.
You would have to then call Microsoft and explain it is the same computer you just had to replace the board and they would give you an activation code.

 

[finity]

There's one thing I still don't understand. What if I format an old hard drive and try installing win7 on that? I'm almost certain my hard drive somehow got damaged, probably from bumping the case into a wall... either way I have to get a drive that works. Do you know any way of repairing such a hard drive? It's really new and probably minimal damage.

 

[boosted1g]

Then that is completely fine.

The license key is tied to the "computer" If one part changes that is not an issue but if everything changes then that is an issue.
If you get an SSD or bigger hard drive or just a replacement that is completely fine.
Now when you upgrade your motherboard and the newer board has a different chipset and different lan chip and a new CPU to support the new motherboard the OS reads these multiple changes as a different computer. Thus you have to call to Microsoft and explain you had to replace the board but you are still using the windows license on just that one machine.

What is not allowable is to take your hard drive with windows on it, and then put it in a different computer to attempt to avoid having to buy another copy of windows. Thus replacing the hard drive is completely fine, putting the old hard drive in a different computer however is not fine.

Hope that clears things up.