[SOLVED] Install old drives in new PC

[Stuffz121]

Hi,
I recently got a new computer and wanted to reuse several of my old drives from my old computer to my new computer. I’ve looked things up and some people say it “could” work that I just plug in my old drives to the new PC as is and it may or may not work?

Or I will need to backup all my data, reformat all my old drives and then plug them into the new PC, and finally copy all of my old files into the drives.

Might be important to note that my old computer is an Intel cpu and motherboard and my new PC is AMD.

In any case, I’m leaning towards just being safe and reformatting my drives so that I don’t experience any weird issues when I plug them into the new PC. Should I reformat them on my old PC or on the new PC or how exactly could I go about this? Any best methods to do this?

Just would like to get more opinions/guidance on this. I’m sure these type of questions about installing old/new drives to other PC’s has been asked to death.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[USAFRet]

What, specifically, is on these drives?

If you're looking to simply pop the old OS drive into a whole new system and expect it to 'just work'....No. (we'll go into details later)

But, details, please.
What OS?
What is the old system and new system? Full parts list.

 

[DSzymborski]

Or I will need to backup all my data, reformat all my old drives and then plug them into the new PC, and finally copy all of my old files into the drives.

USAFRet already outlined the additional information required, but there's an issue here; all your important data should be backed up all the time. In multiple backups, if possible.

Take care of this before even worrying about the new computer. It's an emergency.

 

[Stuffz121]

What, specifically, is on these drives?

If you're looking to simply pop the old OS drive into a whole new system and expect it to 'just work'....No. (we'll go into details later)

But, details, please.
What OS?
What is the old system and new system? Full parts list.

No need to worry about OS drive. My new PC has a boot drive with Windows 10 already installed. I had issues with re-activating my old windows 10 before so I simply bought another windows 10 copy. I probably didn’t need to go that far but I did not want to do too much troubleshooting regarding the OS drive if that makes sense. With how things are, I think I will leave my old windows ssd on my old PC and simply take out the rest of the storage devices.

The rest of my drives that I want to move to my new PC have various programs, tons of games, pictures,backups and all kinds of files on them. Nothing too important but ya. They are, one HDD, one SSHD, and one SSD.
Any recommendations with moving these?

 

[USAFRet]

No need to worry about OS drive. My new PC has a boot drive with Windows 10 already installed. I had issues with re-activating my old windows 10 before so I simply bought another windows 10 copy. I probably didn’t need to go that far but I did not want to do too much troubleshooting regarding the OS drive if that makes sense. With how things are, I think I will leave my old windows ssd on my old PC and simply take out the rest of the storage devices.

The rest of my drives that I want to move to my new PC have various programs, pictures,backups and all kinds of files on them. Nothing too important but ya. They are, one HDD, one SSHD, and one SSD.
Any recommendations with moving these?

The new system has a new OS?

The old programs that may exist on these other drives is of no use.
The new OS and its Registry knows nothing about them.
Reinstall.

For the other drives....verify you have at least TWO copies of any data , on different physical devices, before moving to this new system.

 

[Stuffz121]

The new system has a new OS?

The old programs that may exist on these other drives is of no use.
The new OS and its Registry knows nothing about them.
Reinstall.

For the other drives....verify you have at least TWO copies of any data , on different physical devices, before moving to this new system.

Yes, a new OS is already setup on my new PC, first thing that was done. Again, I figured just to get a new OS for the new PC since I previously had problems reactivating my old OS on another separate computer. Didn’t want to deal with that kind of hassle, at least no right now haha.

I will definitely make copies of all my data on from my old drives to an external SSD. So I understand I definitely need to reinstall everything to my drives on the new computer, before I do that however, does everyone just “format” the drives on Disk Management to clean everything out?

My bad I forgot to add my parts list
Old:
-MSI B150 M3 MOBO
-GTX 1080 GPU
-I7 6700k CPU
-EVGA 750 Gold PSU

• 16 GB DDR4
• CoolerMaster CPU fan

NEW
-Asrock X570 Velocita Wifi MOBO
-Rtx 3090 GPU
-Ryzen 5900x CPU
-Silverstone 1200W platinum PSU
-trident 32 GB Ram
-Phantex Eclipse P600 Case
- Deepcool 360mm liquid cooler

 

[ClapTrapper]

You need to be a bit more clear in what you want to do with the drives.
Do you want them to be data drives? In that case just plug them in.
Do you want to run programs that are on those drives? Then the programs will have to be reinstalled. More than likely the data from those programs will remain intact.
Going to a new motherboard and from Intel to AMD has no effect on anything.

 

[InvalidError]

You should just be able to toss all of your non-boot drives into your new PC without issues besides having to re-install the software that was on it to fix registry keys. For Steam, Blizzard and other games with launchers, the launcher will usually handle fixing whatever needs fixing when games get shuffled around.

You only need to format drives if you suspect the file system may have been corrupted and the OS isn't catching it on normal checks.

 

[Stuffz121]

You need to be a bit more clear in what you want to do with the drives.
Do you want them to be data drives? In that case just plug them in.
Do you want to run programs that are on those drives? Then the programs will have to be reinstalled. More than likely the data from those programs will remain intact.
Going to a new motherboard and from Intel to AMD has no effect on anything.

Hi, all my drives have mix of different files including installed programs. When you say I need to reinstall my programs within the new PC, should I first remove the programs on my old PC and reconnect the drive to my new PC? Or after everything is backed up, should I just clean it out completely?

Just asking for the best general step process to do it if that makes sense.

 

[Stuffz121]

You should just be able to toss all of your non-boot drives into your new PC without issues besides having to re-install the software that was on it to fix registry keys. For Steam, Blizzard and other games with launchers, the launcher will usually handle fixing whatever needs fixing when games get shuffled around.

You only need to format drives if you suspect the file system may have been corrupted and the OS isn't catching it on normal checks.

So for example regarding my several Steam libraries on multiple drives, if I were to plug these drives into the new computer, I would need to reinstall steam and hope that steam would recognize I have games on multiple drives?

In another case, my family have used my old PC for their iPhone/ITunes backups, would these backups be fine when the drives are installed in a new PC? Guess I need to also reinstall iTunes on the new PC and hope it recognizes the backups?

These are the types of things I am wondering.
For sure I will be backing up everything in an external drive to be safe but ya.

It would be great if everything would work out smoothly but I have never needed to do this before so I want to make sure I understand what I should expect.

 

[InvalidError]

Just asking for the best general step process to do it if that makes sense.

Doesn't matter. You need to re-install programs, either wherever they already were or on your new SSD because the old install will likely have broken dependencies that require a re-install to fix. Your own data related to those programs will stay wherever it already was, it doesn't matter whether you move it to its new location before or after re-installing software. If you install software on your new SSD, you can just delete the old install directory after you are done scavenging whatever files you may want to keep if any.

 

[InvalidError]

So for example regarding my several Steam libraries on multiple drives, if I were to plug these drives into the new computer, I would need to reinstall steam and hope that steam would recognize I have games on multiple drives?

You will need to tell Steam where your libraries are and that should be pretty much it. Same goes for most other launchers.

What do you think happens after you make a backup elsewhere? Exactly the same thing: you will still need to tell applications where to find their stuff.

 

[Stuffz121]

Doesn't matter. You need to re-install programs, either wherever they already were or on your new SSD because the old install will likely have broken dependencies that require a re-install to fix. Your own data related to those programs will stay wherever it already was, it doesn't matter whether you move it to its new location before or after re-installing software. If you install software on your new SSD, you can just delete the old install directory after you are done scavenging whatever files you may want to keep if any.

Ok gotcha I think I understand thanks. So on the new PC once I plug the old drives in and start the installation process for a program, I would simply need to select the same installation path where the old program is already in, and I guess it would either completely override the installation or recognize it’s already there and good to go? Sorry just wanted to confirm, thanks again

 

[InvalidError]

Ok gotcha I think I understand thanks. So on the new PC once I plug the old drives in and start the installation process for a program, I would simply need to select the same installation path where the old program is already in, and I guess it would either completely override the installation or recognize it’s already there and good to go? Sorry just wanted to confirm, thanks again

Most game launchers will scan the directory to verify that everything that is supposed to be there is there and intact. Most other software will just overwrite whatever is in there instead of bothering with an integrity check.

 

[Stuffz121]

Most game launchers will scan the directory to verify that everything that is supposed to be there is there and intact. Most other software will just overwrite whatever is in there instead of bothering with an integrity check.

Gotcha, thanks again. I’ll try plugging everything into my new pc and see how things go then