How to use boot hard drive on old pc as boot hard drive on new pc?

[Amaggard]

Sorry if this has been asked a million times, but I haven't found a sufficient answer, so allow me to explain my situation.

I build my custom PC 3 years ago, and now I am upgrading to a new PC, all different parts, but I want to re use my hard drive, as I don't have the money for a new hard drive at the moment.

I know I can not just plug it into my new PC, but I want to know if I can format the drive, place it into my new PC, run the Window's 8.1 installation CD, and install it that way. I don't really know how I would go about doing that though.

Obviously the copy of Window's 8.1 isn't OEM, but I am not sure how I would effectively go about formatting a drive on one PC then placing it in another like it's a brand new hard drive then run the installation process.

Is this possible?
Thanks.

 

[USAFRet]

"Obviously the copy of Window's 8.1 isn't OEM"
How do you know this?

Anyway...
You can't format the boot drive while that OS is running.

You put the drive in the new system, boot from your Win 8.1 DVD, and start the install process.
When it asks 'where', select Custom.
Delete all existing partitions, and proceed on.

 

[jacobweaver800]

Sorry if this has been asked a million times, but I haven't found a sufficient answer, so allow me to explain my situation.

I build my custom PC 3 years ago, and now I am upgrading to a new PC, all different parts, but I want to re use my hard drive, as I don't have the money for a new hard drive at the moment.

I know I can not just plug it into my new PC, but I want to know if I can format the drive, place it into my new PC, run the Window's 8.1 installation CD, and install it that way. I don't really know how I would go about doing that though.

Obviously the copy of Window's 8.1 isn't OEM, but I am not sure how I would effectively go about formatting a drive on one PC then placing it in another like it's a brand new hard drive then run the installation process.

Is this possible?
Thanks.

Well, you can just reformat the drive in windows and it will reinstall windows once its done erasing it all and since its not an OEM copy you should be able to then transplant the drive directly into your new rig and you'll already have windows on it.

 

[USAFRet]

Well, you can just reformat the drive in windows and it will reinstall windows once its done erasing it all and since its not an OEM copy you should be able to then transplant the drive directly into your new rig and you'll already have windows on it.

???
No. The OS needs to be installed on the system where it will live.
Not installed in one, and then moved to the other system.

Moving a drive like that often fails.
Pre Win 10, the fail is more likely than not.

 

[jacobweaver800]

Well, you can just reformat the drive in windows and it will reinstall windows once its done erasing it all and since its not an OEM copy you should be able to then transplant the drive directly into your new rig and you'll already have windows on it.

???
No. The OS needs to be installed on the system where it will live.
Not installed in one, and then moved to the other system.

Moving a drive like that often fails.
Pre Win 10, the fail is more likely than not.

I've done it all the time with Win 7 Win 8 8.1 and win 10 and never had a problem on non OEM installs of windows.

 

[USAFRet]

Well, you can just reformat the drive in windows and it will reinstall windows once its done erasing it all and since its not an OEM copy you should be able to then transplant the drive directly into your new rig and you'll already have windows on it.

???
No. The OS needs to be installed on the system where it will live.
Not installed in one, and then moved to the other system.

Moving a drive like that often fails.
Pre Win 10, the fail is more likely than not.

I've done it all the time with Win 7 Win 8 8.1 and win 10 and never had a problem on non OEM installs of windows.

And I've seen it work, and I've seen it fail completely. No boot at all.
Across all 3 versions.

 

[jacobweaver800]

Well, you can just reformat the drive in windows and it will reinstall windows once its done erasing it all and since its not an OEM copy you should be able to then transplant the drive directly into your new rig and you'll already have windows on it.

???
No. The OS needs to be installed on the system where it will live.
Not installed in one, and then moved to the other system.

Moving a drive like that often fails.
Pre Win 10, the fail is more likely than not.

I've done it all the time with Win 7 Win 8 8.1 and win 10 and never had a problem on non OEM installs of windows.

And I've seen it work, and I've seen it fail completely. No boot at all.
Across all 3 versions.

Then explain what the heck I'm seeing when Linus from LTT uses boot drives with win 7 win 8 and win 10 and changes them between system all the time.

 

[USAFRet]

Then explain what the heck I'm seeing when Linus from LTT uses boot drives with win 7 win 8 and win 10 and changes them between system all the time.

Because Linus has a large staff to test things, and you never see the first take of this.

Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it fails completely. We see people like that here every day.
Sometimes it works, but you get lingering issues later.

November 2016, when I rebuilt my main PC (this one I'm using now)...going from an i5-3570k to an i7-4790k, Win 10 Pro.
No matter what I did, no boot. Period.
Of course, I was fully prepared for a full reinstall. So I did that.

 

[jacobweaver800]

Then explain what the heck I'm seeing when Linus from LTT uses boot drives with win 7 win 8 and win 10 and changes them between system all the time.

Because Linus has a large staff to test things, and you never see the first take of this.

Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it fails completely. We see people like that here every day.
Sometimes it works, but you get lingering issues later.

November 2016, when I rebuilt my main PC (this one I'm using now)...going from an i5-3570k to an i7-4790k, Win 10 Pro.
No matter what I did, no boot. Period.
Of course, I was fully prepared for a full reinstall. So I did that.

The explain why I've never had any boot fail or have any problems when moving drives of several OS's between several systems?

 

[USAFRet]

The explain why I've never had any boot fail or have any problems when moving drives of several OS's between several systems?

Luck?
No idea.

It's worth a try just plugging it in.
But don't be shocked and panic if it fails.

 

[jacobweaver800]

The explain why I've never had any boot fail or have any problems when moving drives of several OS's between several systems?

Luck?
No idea.

It's worth a try just plugging it in.
But don't be shocked and panic if it fails.

From what I hear, it should work if you clean install it on the old system, It might take longer to boot first time on the new one because windows will recognize it as not the original system and will have to reinitialize on the new system, but it should work.

 

[USAFRet]

The explain why I've never had any boot fail or have any problems when moving drives of several OS's between several systems?

Luck?
No idea.

It's worth a try just plugging it in.
But don't be shocked and panic if it fails.

From what I hear, it should work if you clean install it on the old system, It might take longer to boot first time on the new one because windows will recognize it as not the original system and will have to reinitialize on the new system, but it should work.

If you're going to do a clean install anyway, why not just do it in the new system?
And yes, a brand new install is probably more likely to work than an install that is 3 years old, filled with old gunk.