Question Upgrading motherboard - backing up data and OS reinstallation

[Nexus180]

Hi all. After getting some amazing help from this forum I have just bought a new motherboard, CPU and RAM to upgrade my very old PC. My old I7 3770k CPU is being replaced with an i5 12400f. My old Asus p8277-v mobo is being replaced with a gigabyte b660m gaming x. Ram will be 16gb Kingston fury beast 3200. GPU is 3060 ti. I have 2 SSD and 2 HDD that I hope to continue to use on my new system. I have Windows 10 installed on my c drive (one of the SSDs); I originally bought the entire PC from chill blast with Windows 8 pre-installed; I then upgraded to Windows 10 when it was free and I now have my digital licence connected to my Microsoft account.

Having done some research I am confused about the following issues for when I install this hardware:

1. I have read about the need to back up your data before replacing significant hardware like this. Am I right in thinking that that is only talking about backing up any data on your old drive that contains windows (as I understand that drive will be wiped when windows is reinstalled) ie I do not need two backup any data from any of the other drives?

2. I think I am right in saying that it is best for me to do a fresh install of Windows 10 when I change my motherboard? If so, am I right in thinking that I should just plug in to my new motherboard my drive that currently contains windows, turn it on and wait until it gives me the option to log into my Microsoft account in order to access and reinstall Windows on my old c drive? Then once Windows has been reinstalled I can then plug in the other three drives to the new motherboard.

3. I have read that it is sensible for me to download the latest BIOS for my motherboard onto a USB stick so that I can manually update it the first time I turn the PC on with the new motherboard installed- is that the best approach?

Many thanks!

 

[Lafong]

Question 1; You should back up any personal data on any drive that will be altered in any way during the rebuild of this PC....regardless of whether Windows is on the drive now. If the other drives are not connected to the motherboard, they cannot be altered.

Question 2; Yes you should do a clean install. DISCONNECT all drives other than the one to receive Windows. You would install Windows by first going to Microsoft.com and locating their "Media Creation Tool". Download it onto a USB flash drive of at least 8 GB capacity. Boot from it by choosing the USB flash drive from your boot menu. It should display all the existing partitions on your only connected drive. Delete all those partitions. That leaves you with only "unallocated space". Follow the prompts to install Windows onto that unallocated space. Windows will reboot a time or two and make new partitions as it sees fit. After all of that is complete and all appears well, re-connect your other drives.

3; BIOS...you will get varying opinions. I personally would NOT update the BIOS unless you know for a fact that a new BIOS is required. Re-evaluate the question later after the PC is up and running. I'm still on a 7 year old BIOS with NO issues.

 

[USAFRet]

#2 - It may not give you that option. With a whole new system, the old drive might not boot in to Windows at all.

Read through here:

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[Nexus180]

Wow- thanks so much. The guide looks v comprehensive and I will just try to follow that in full.

 

[DSzymborski]

I would note, however, that if you care about the data in the drives, that data should always be backed up, all the time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Any data on any of the drives that you care about and isn't backed up, is going to be lost sooner or later.

 

[Sarel500]

Hi all. After getting some amazing help from this forum I have just bought a new motherboard, CPU and RAM to upgrade my very old PC. My old I7 3770k CPU is being replaced with an i5 12400f. My old Asus p8277-v mobo is being replaced with a gigabyte b660m gaming x. Ram will be 16gb Kingston fury beast 3200. GPU is 3060 ti. I have 2 SSD and 2 HDD that I hope to continue to use on my new system. I have Windows 10 installed on my c drive (one of the SSDs); I originally bought the entire PC from chill blast with Windows 8 pre-installed; I then upgraded to Windows 10 when it was free and I now have my digital licence connected to my Microsoft account.

Having done some research I am confused about the following issues for when I install this hardware:

1. I have read about the need to back up your data before replacing significant hardware like this. Am I right in thinking that that is only talking about backing up any data on your old drive that contains windows (as I understand that drive will be wiped when windows is reinstalled) ie I do not need two backup any data from any of the other drives?

2. I think I am right in saying that it is best for me to do a fresh install of Windows 10 when I change my motherboard? If so, am I right in thinking that I should just plug in to my new motherboard my drive that currently contains windows, turn it on and wait until it gives me the option to log into my Microsoft account in order to access and reinstall Windows on my old c drive? Then once Windows has been reinstalled I can then plug in the other three drives to the new motherboard.

3. I have read that it is sensible for me to download the latest BIOS for my motherboard onto a USB stick so that I can manually update it the first time I turn the PC on with the new motherboard installed- is that the best approach?

Many thanks!

I am no expert, but everytime I did an upgrade, I always unplug all my extra Drives, to ensure nothing happens to the data, and also to make sure I install Windows on the correct drive.