Question So I built a new pc and installed windows on a brand new hard drive but now i put in my old SSD and have an odd question

[psychonaut424]

So i never got to activate windows on this new pc yet so i was using the free version of it. But this SSD already had windows 10 on it and the moment I installed it and turned on my pc it was like I was on my old pc with windows activated and all my data that was on the ssd still there. But I still have windows installed on the new hard drive. Is there any way to get rid of windows on that hard drive to save space? I also though that windows wouldnt work since this is a totally different motherboard. maybe because some of the components are the same? Im not too sure.

 

[USAFRet]

1. There is no "free version". There is simply Activated and Unactivated.
2. It is almost certainly now booting from the SSD, not the HDD
3. Sometimes (rarely) moving a drive to a new system works. You got lucky.
4. Verify that the system actually works properly and is Activated with the only SSD in this system. Then we can move on to cleaning off that HDD.

 

[psychonaut424]

1. There is no "free version". There is simply Activated and Unactivated.
2. It is almost certainly now booting from the SSD, not the HDD
3. Sometimes (rarely) moving a drive to a new system works. You got lucky.
4. Verify that the system actually works properly and is Activated with the only SSD in this system. Then we can move on to cleaning off that HDD.

Yeah I know that is what I meant when I said free haha. And yeah I guess you're right I did get pretty dang lucky. But like I said It could have been that windows recognized some of the hardware like my gpu maybe? Im not too sure. I did just format the hard drive and currently everything seems to be working fine. May need to reinstall device drivers maybe? I know when I installed them I did it on my hard drive so i'm not too sure if I need to redo it.

 

[USAFRet]

Yes, you need to reinstall whatever drivers are applicable to your hardware.
Whatever lives on the HDD is null and void.

 

[psychonaut424]

Yes, you need to reinstall whatever drivers are applicable to your hardware.
Whatever lives on the HDD is null and void.

Okay thanks man. This was the first PC I actually built so i'm still learning some stuff. I'm relatively knowledgable but definitely not gonna be working for linus media group any time soon lol.

 

[jsmithepa]

but definitely not gonna be working for linus media group any time soon lol.

Canada is too cold.