How to Uninstall Windows 8.1 from a Hard Drive and Install Fresh to a Completely Different Hard Drive

[GrahamCraqqa]

I have been using a very old seagate hard drive that has been using Windows 8.1. I finally bought a tb of wd black from my brother slightly used, and am having a huge problem finding out how to do a fresh install onto it.

I tried straight up swapping the hard drives, with the both of them having 2 different versions of windows 8 on it, got to clear the wd black after it had "repairing" issues, then I was unable to use my install disk, I think mainly because it was still installed on the other hard drive, although it wasn't even connected at that moment. I then reconnected this hard drive and here I am asking what to do.

I am very confused at this moment and I only have one set of wires to connect to one hard drive at a time. Also, I have absolutely nothing on the hard drive I am using at the moment that I want to transfer to the other. I just want to end up with a fresh install on the wd black.

 

[kajjot]

You can boot from your old HDD while new one is plugged in and use "macrium reflect" to clone it.
Then simply remove old HDD and you're good to go. (ok maybe you'll have to resize partitions to mach new HDD size)

 

[GrahamCraqqa]

You can boot from your old HDD while new one is plugged in and use "macrium reflect" to clone it.
Then simply remove old HDD and you're good to go. (ok maybe you'll have to resize partitions to mach new HDD size)

I only have one set of wires, so I can't clone them since they have to be in one at a time.

 

[aldan]

do you mean to say that your sata ports are all filled or that you only have one sata cable for your hdd? if its a matter of getting a cable,they are cheap.if your sata ports are all full you can always unplug something you are not using when doing the cloning process,like your dvd/cd drive.once you have cloned your old drive to the new one you can plug it back in.like kajjot said you may have to partition the new drive to match the old hdd size.this partition can be removed after cloning.if its a fresh install you are after you still need both hdds plugged in so you can boot to your old drive and format the new one.once your new hdd is formatted,unplug the old drive and install windows.

 

[GrahamCraqqa]

Alright I do have both of them connected right now, thank you for notifying to me that the dvd drive had one, but it doesn't appear when I connect it, I tried restarting and the same repair process is happening again. I disconnected it and restarted the computer until it got to here and now I reconnected it but nothing is showing up at the moment.

 

[aldan]

so if your pc recognized your dvd drive we can assume the sata cable is good.so if only the new hdd is plugged in and you boot to your windows install media,does it see the drive then?

 

[binayshaw7777]

You can copy your all important files to that different head drive and uninstall old windows. And from Microsoft website you can install fresh copy of windows or if you have a cd.

 

[USAFRet]

You can copy your all important files to that different head drive and uninstall old windows. And from Microsoft website you can install fresh copy of windows or if you have a cd.

I hope that, 4 years later, the OP is still not wondering how to get his system onto a new drive.