Migrating SSD from one build to another

kirbyrj

kirbyrj

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My father is currently running a 5960x/X99 setup on Windows 10. He is adamant that he does not want to start with a fresh Windows install. He's one of those people with a desktop full of icons.

Do you think I could pop his SSD/Windows 10 install into a 12900k/z690 combo and it would boot if I just transferred the SSD from one computer to the other? Should I prep anything before doing so?

My alternative would be to do a fresh Win 11 install on another smaller SSD I have lying around. Let him use both computers and get the 2nd one set up the way he likes it, and then cloning it onto his current 2TB SSD.
 
You will need a new Win 10 key, but yes it should work. Uninstall every driver first on the old system.


I just did the same for my moms system. Nothing could change at all but it's running fine
 
if its a retail key you can reactive it. just make sure you match legacy vs uefi in the bios and it should fire right up. i deal with the drivers after its up, 10/11 dont seem to care much.
 
It should work just fine, but I would backup anything important first anyways.

I transferred my NVMe from my 9900k to my 12700k machine without issue, I did have to confirm having changed my hardware to get fully activated
 
I have accidentally discovered this new Windows feature a couple times in the last several years. Windows 10 will boot up in a new system very well. Just connect the hard drive and let it boot. It’s worked several times for me. I usually forget about it and then I do the initial boot and the computer just boots right up to Windows 10.

If you are using a Microsoft account, the computer will either auto re-validate or you might have to go online to Microsoft website and tell it to remove the old computer from your account and apply the license to the new computer. If using a local account, I don’t know if possible.
 
I've done this a few time as well... Intel P45 with E8500 to Intel P67 with i7-2600. Also from a different Intel P67 with i7-2600k to an AMD 3900X system with not too many issues.

What I have come to do now is uninstall any drivers or software that won't be used on the new hardware...chipset, audio, USB3, MB utlilities, etc. ,etc. Also, make sure you have already downloaded all the drivers//software for the new hardware prior.
 
westrock2000 said:
I have accidentally discovered this new Windows feature a couple times in the last several years. Windows 10 will boot up in a new system very well. Just connect the hard drive and let it boot. It’s worked several times for me. I usually forget about it and then I do the initial boot and the computer just boots right up to Windows 10.

If you are using a Microsoft account, the computer will either auto re-validate or you might have to go online to Microsoft website and tell it to remove the old computer from your account and apply the license to the new computer. If using a local account, I don’t know if possible.
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So if you remove an old computer from your MS account, does the account show an "unused" license. Can you "select" that license for another machine?
 
when you reuse it should just reattach to your account. you should be able to do it without an account too and at most do the phone/chat reactivation on new hardware option.
 
You can use veeam's free windows agent to backup to a network storage location or another drive and restore to dissimilar hardware. I've had great success with it.

You can also convert a legacy install to uefi following this guide, though it is a little involved and not just a one click solution.
 
kirbyrj said:
I'm pretty sure it is a UEFI install, so I have that going for me.
Click to expand...
Before I cloned my old SSD to the new SSD, I used Minitool to change the empty drive from MBR to UEFI. No problems after that using Macrium do the cloning job.
 
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