Moving Hard Drive with OS to another PC?

[WarMachine]

Sup dudes? So I FINALLY took the plunge and ordered the parts needed to build a ryzen gaming rig, "great success" lol. I should have all the parts in on Wednesday this week. Since its on its way, im going to be swapping my "gaming" rig now to my recording workhorse. The question I have is, do any of you guys know if i can just drop my C drive that has the main OS and installs from my current PC to my other rig WITHOUT loosing data? I've already started zipping some backup files just in case it wont work, but if I put everything on external hdd's or anything im looking at about 700-750gb total. If all else fails I do have another empty 1tb hdd I could drop everything in to. But i was curious if I even needed to.

EDIT: well, I went ahead and tried swapping drives. No dice. At least between a dell optiplex 3010 and a dell optiplex 990. But I did have luck having that blank drive. It detected in my 3010 so I'll be able to copy everything over that way. Guess I'll just do a fresh install of Windows 10 on the other pc when I get my other drive backed up.

 

[Electric Wizard]

The OS is locked to the motherboard on OEM builds like a Dell. If you buy a retail version of windows for your new pc, when the time comes you should be able to drop that drive in a future machine like you were planning to do this time.

 

[SpaceDock]

I was able to successfully do this a couple months ago when I build my new pc. There is a place in the windows setting that you sign up to some windows online junk. You then build your new computer. When you start up windows your drivers will be mega screwed so be prepared for a lot of tshooting. Then you will be able to sign into the windows account and it will activate.

I refuse to purchase windows and have been using the same account or copy since the Windows 7 free beta. All free upgrades since then and on fourth computer build now.

 

[sprinterca]

It is possible to do it, but I won't advise it. You will likely run into problems later on, so to save yourself time and headaches, it's recommended to do a fresh install of your operating system. The last system I did this in went from an Asus P6T deluxe motherboard to an Asus Z87-Deluxe board. Different chipset, different storage controllers. Some of my data got deleted, and I had to go to data recovery services to get it back. Depending on the new system you're swapping the hard drive to, you "may" be able to boot in safe mode, delete all drivers, and manually reinstall the correct drivers for the new motherboard and all other cards/peripherals.