Question Do I need to perform a fresh Windows install after upgrading motherboard, CPU & RAM ?

[Jesse.m.niemi]

Hello, I've been planning on upgrading my cpu, ram and motherboard for a while now and I've heard that I should wipe my drive/clean install windows whenever I upgrade all 3. my question is could I just install windows onto another drive, lets say x, and boot off of the x drive to delete windows items from the c drive? im upgrading from am4, ddr4 to am5, ddr5 which is making me question if doing nothing could break something.

just for added information
ryzen 7 3700x > ryzen 7 7800x3d
asus prime b450-plus > ROG strix b650-a wifi
kingston fury beast 3600mhz 32gb kit > kingston fury beast ddr5 6000mhz 32gb kit
asus tuf rtx 3060 12g oc
2 samsung 860 evo 500gb (c and z)
1 samsung 970 evo plus 1tb (x)

 

[rgd1101]

best to do a fresh os install

 

[Eximo]

It is best to do so.

However, if the OS is relatively clean you can just try and uninstall motherboard specific software, shut down, and drop the drive into the new system. This has a relatively high success rate, but does risk your existing OS install.

Installing a second OS will also work, but I don't see much point in doing that if you don't plan to revert to the old build.

If that 1TB drive has free space, I would shrink it so that you have an empty partition, image your existing Windows, Load that image into the unpartitioned space on the 1TB drive, remove the old boot drive and try to boot from the 1TB drive.

If it works, hooray, if it doesn't you still have a backup of your old OS to revert to.

 

[helper800]

Always do a fresh install with a motherboard change.

 

[Jesse.m.niemi]

It is best to do so.

However, if the OS is relatively clean you can just try and uninstall motherboard specific software, shut down, and drop the drive into the new system. This has a relatively high success rate, but does risk your existing OS install.

Installing a second OS will also work, but I don't see much point in doing that if you don't plan to revert to the old build.

If that 1TB drive has free space, I would shrink it so that you have an empty partition, image your existing Windows, Load that image into the unpartitioned space on the 1TB drive, remove the old boot drive and try to boot from the 1TB drive.

If it works, hooray, if it doesn't you still have a backup of your old OS to revert to.

I've had the first drive since 2019, my plan was to only have the 1tb drive in the pc and install windows onto that one and then delete windows off of my first drive. Could this be possible or do I need to either move the OS from the first drive into the 1tb drive or wipe the drive with the windows OS? Thank you either way!

 

[punkncat]

On deletion of that drive....

First, make sure to get anything you want off of it before making system changes.
The easiest thing to do is to disconnect or remove all drives from the system but the one you want deleted. Use the installer USB for the OS, go to "advanced" and select and delete all of the partitions. Just cancel the install right afterwards.
On the same token, make sure when you build the new system that for the install only have the drive you are installing to connected to install to.

You may have to go into Disk Manager (Create and Delete) to initialize the drive you wiped before it will show up.

 

[USAFRet]

Determine exactly what you need to do to transfer your existing license to this new hardware.

Have only ONE drive physically connected when you do this install.

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[abufrejoval]

Perhaps the best thing I can say about Windows is that these days at least you get a choice.

I remember the decades when you just knew there was no other choice but a re-install will all those countless floppies...

When SATA-SSDs became affordable, I started putting trayless hot-swap cages into my systems and OS images would move rather freely between systems: the fact that they'd just run on all these different systems with at most a reboot and some added drivers was both rather welcome and raised my expectations quite a bit.

And there Linux then often disappointed in comparison, especially when GPUs were involved.

I'd say start with your existing system and if you have some extra time on your hand or M$ decides to push an OS upgrade on you, you can do the in-place re-install later.

That will carry over most of your apps and data yet clean out some obvious chaff that tends to accumulate on Windows.

It really depends on how much mess has accumulated on your system and so I find it hard to give a recommendation.

One thing is for sure, though: make sure your backups are up-to-date and restoration works.

 

[samael8868]

1 issue is however that the windows 10 digital licence will in effect be lost on upgrading to a new motherboard. But it's weird cos I have done this twice and first time was a brand new system with a SSD drive from an old one with a clean windows 10 install. As soon as I logged in with a microsoft account it activated the digital licence.

The second time was my new monster system all brand new components and poof, had to buy a new windows 10 Pro key cos it would not activate. I ended up installing buying a new key then calling microsoft support to complain. If I was robbed and had my PC stolen, or I dropped a cup of coffee on it, should I have to buy a new windows 10 OS everytime my PC breaks/gets stolen etc. The lady at microsoft overode issues and activated my copy. Then weirdly after an in place install of windows 10 to repair things, suddenly its activated with a digital licence. The product key info disappeared. Baffling tbh. And why does it not say any where, how many PCs a person is allowed to install windows 10 on, if they have say a PC and a laptop?

Last point that tutorial on windows clean install is good. Be aware if you decide to clean install Windows 11 on a second drive, but leave the windows 10 existing drive in place, windows uses the original drive to boot the system, it does not create a brand new boot loader for the second drive. This means, you like windows 11 woohoo, you remove the first windows 10 drive. System will not boot. As you just removed the sole bootloader. I personally would clone the first drive in

 

[USAFRet]

1 issue is however that the windows 10 digital licence will in effect be lost on upgrading to a new motherboard.

Depending on where it came from, no it won't.

MS has specific procedures for transferring a license to new hardware.

 

[USAFRet]

And why does it not say any where, how many PCs a person is allowed to install windows 10 on, if they have say a PC and a laptop?

1 license, 1 PC.

 

[Jesse.m.niemi]

Determine exactly what you need to do to transfer your existing license to this new hardware.

Have only ONE drive physically connected when you do this install.

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

Im planning on switching the install location to a different drive than it is currently on, how can i fully wipe the c drive which currently has the windows install when i want the new install to be on the x drive? is there a simple way to delete everything and leave it empty? and to just install the new windows onto the new drive, is there anything i should do except just have it be the only drive installed? Thank you!

 

[USAFRet]

Im planning on switching the install location to a different drive than it is currently on, how can i fully wipe the c drive which currently has the windows install when i want the new install to be on the x drive? is there a simple way to delete everything and leave it empty? and to just install the new windows onto the new drive, is there anything i should do except just have it be the only drive installed? Thank you!

For the installation, the above linked tutorial.

For removing everything from the old drive, commandline function diskpart, and the clean command.

How to Format a Hard Drive Using the Command Prompt

You can clean internal and external hard drives using the command prompt by following our instructions.

www.tomshardware.com

How to Diskpart Erase/Clean a Drive Through the Command Prompt | Seagate US

This article explains the Microsoft Diskpart Erase utility. The command that erases the drive during this process is "Clean". In this article "Clean" and erase are used interchangeably. Cleaning or erasing a storage device removes all data and partitions from the drive.

www.seagate.com

Use diskpart to create, delete and modify disk partitions | TechTarget

Follow these step-by-step instructions to perform a successful diskpart delete partition operation among other disk-related jobs in Windows.

searchwindowsserver.techtarget.com

Be absolutely sure of which drive you are doing this to.