Old Hard Drive to new build

TurnyStark

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Jun 27, 2014
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Sorry if this is a common/newbie question but I need help with this situation. I currently have an old Dell PC which I got about 6 (I think) years ago running on Windows 7 which is slowly dying on me and it's time for me to get a new one which I am building myself. The one problem I have is that the old PC currently has a lot of software (mainly music software) that I had either bought or been given from companies which only had one usage licence codes. With the new build and being a student I won't really have the money to repurchase an licences and the ones given to me I will be unable to get again. I haven't started planning any parts of the new build yet as I felt I should deal with this before doing anything else.

So basically my question is: Can I simply just move the hard drive and use it as a boot drive in my new build? I understand that having the new hardware would mean installing drivers and stuff, but could I not just do that with the hard drive in the current PC and then transfer it into the new one?

Sorry again if this is an annoying question.
 
Solution
That probably will not work.
The system may boot up, or it may choke completely. Coming from a PC from 2008, I'm leaning towards the latter.

Then there is the OS license. Coming from a Dell, that OS is almost certainly licensed to that original motherboard.

You'll probably get a couple of comments in here stating "Oh yeah. Just do it. It works perfectly every time!"
No it does not.
Usually no. One there is the issue of the Windows license. Next, most Windows installation have all the drivers and settings set to work with your current system and parts. Move it and it doesn't know how to communication with the new computer and won't boot. Very rare does a HD from an old system work and boot up. Too many variations in hardware.

No way to really transfer the software either as it puts in all kinds of files, dll's, registry entries, etc so if you reinstall windows on a new PC, no real way to "copy" over the installed programs from the old HD either.
 
That probably will not work.
The system may boot up, or it may choke completely. Coming from a PC from 2008, I'm leaning towards the latter.

Then there is the OS license. Coming from a Dell, that OS is almost certainly licensed to that original motherboard.

You'll probably get a couple of comments in here stating "Oh yeah. Just do it. It works perfectly every time!"
No it does not.
 
Solution
Thanks guys, completely forgot about the Windows license! Will see if I can get the software again when I build. Some of the software were simple, free .dll plugin's so should be ok but its just a shame about the rest.