Reusing a hardrive on a gaming pc?

[TheShad]

So my friend wants to build a gaming PC, but is limited to a budget of $600. To cut costs, we thought of reusing the hard-drive on his HP Pavilion Slimline s5-1204 . I've heard how hard-drives in pre-built computers are usually tied to the motherboard (or that was the case with windows 7?). Anyways, if he upgrades to windows ten, will this override the HDD being tied to the motherboard and ultimately allow him to use that hard drive on his gaming PC, without having to reactviate?

 

[USAFRet]

The physical dive, no problem.
The OS that may be on it and licensing thereof, problem.

Additionally, it probably would not boot up with the different hardware.

 

[a1r]

The physical hard drive won't have a problem assuming it's in good condition, has same interface, etc.

If it's running an OEM version of Windows, (and pretty sure it is unless he installed it special), the *license* is going to be tied to the HP motherboard and you may not be able to get it to actually activate properly. In fact, if it's using a hidden partition for installing the OS and you try to install it from that hidden partition it's going to error because HP ties the install process to HP motherboards only. If it detects a non-hp board the install will fail.

And as many have discovered Windows itself regardless of licensing does not transfer well to different hardware without a fresh install.