How did my new hardrive connect to my wifi without me putting in the password

[Fier]

I fresh installed a new hardrive to my laptop while at uni. when i came home for the weekend it connected to my home wifi without me putting in a password. how is this possible? my wifi is protected and i never cloned the new hardrive i installed it straight out the box

 

[USAFRet]

I fresh installed a new hardrive to my laptop while at uni. when i came home for the weekend it connected to my home wifi without me putting in a password. how is this possible? my wifi is protected and i never cloned the new hardrive i installed it straight out the box

You put in a new physical drive.
What did you do with the OS? Clean install?

Is the WiFi password protected? Is there possibly a Guest network that is not password protected?

Is it talking to the right SSID? Or possibly a neighbors unprotected network?

 

[Calvin7]

If it connected you to your home wifi, then you have an OS installed.

The wireless keys are stored in the file system, under c:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Wlansvc\Profiles\Interfaces[Interface Guid].

 

[Math Geek]

i noticed a lot of stuff is stored by MS if windows is connected to a MS account. i did a fresh install and it installed my network, wireless printer and even put back my slide show for my desktop wallpaper.

more than likely windows saved some stuff you did not know it was saving to their servers. they keeping more info than most realize on you with win 10. it's scary really but i am guessing this is the case.

 

[Fier]

I fresh installed a new hardrive to my laptop while at uni. when i came home for the weekend it connected to my home wifi without me putting in a password. how is this possible? my wifi is protected and i never cloned the new hardrive i installed it straight out the box

You put in a new physical drive.
What did you do with the OS? Clean install?

Is the WiFi password protected? Is there possibly a Guest network that is not password protected?

Is it talking to the right SSID? Or possibly a neighbors unprotected network?

Yes it was a new physical drive, I installed the os from a usb using the microsoft creation tool, not a guest network and wifi is protected