Moving laptop's SSD with pre-installed OEM Win 7 to newly built PC

[mikebush79]

Ok, so my Dell laptop motherboard recently died after 4 years of service and I'm ready to move on to a new, custom built PC.

I plan to keep my OS drive in my dead laptop and put it into the new PC. It seems that I only need to update the drivers and it would work (might have to use sysprep), however my concern is that the OEM Windows 7 installed on the SSD might be a problem here.

My question is, what should I do to keep my SSD working on the new PC?
In the worst case, I dont mind doing a clean install but first I need to access the data in the SSD and copy it to a backup driver. How do I do this safely? Can I purchase an enclosure like this one
http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-Inch-External-Aluminum-Enclosure/dp/B00E362W9O/ref=sr_1_5?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1425886167&sr=1-5&keywords=ssd+enclosure
then connect it to my Macbook, copy the needed data, then do a clean install later?

Thank you.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there mikebush79. You should be able to do with both ways, either externally (via the enclosure or via a SATA to USB cable) or internally (via a SATA connection directly to the motherboard). Just take a look if everything's OK with the boot order in BIOS and that you boot from your primary drive instead of the SSD. You should be able to access the files and back them up. Then you can wipe it out and use it in your new build.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

 

[sizzling]

You are going to have licencing problems as your Win 7 licence is tied to your laptop. To activate it I feel quite sure you will end having to call MS who I doubt will let you do what you want as its way outside of the OEM licence.

Also a clean install is a much better idea.

 

[mikebush79]

Hi Boogieman,
Is there anyway to keep my SSD, upgrade to windows 8.1 ( i purchased a retail license) along with drivers for my new PC without having to wipe out all the data? That is still my priority, unless it is impossible 🙁

Thank you!

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Well it's a good thing that you have your Windows 8.1 retail license, but I'm afraid that in your case a fresh install is the best course of action. You still have the OEM version of Windows on that SSD along with the drivers for the old mobo, chipset, processor etc. Although it's not necessary that this would fail to work if you decide to try it with your new computer, in 9 out of 10 cases - it would cause conflicts between the new hardware and the drivers you already have. You might get away with a GPU, RAM, sound card or even CPU change, but a whole new build would require a fresh install. If you have a retail license for Windows 8.1, then you should be OK with new OS install, although you'll need to backup all of your data in advance and it's a little bit more of a hassle to do everything from scratch, but in my opinion, this is the way to do it.

 

[USAFRet]

Clean install of 8.1, when the drive is in the new PC.