Switching Motherboard + CPU; is there an easier way of transferring files?

[lazyfortress]

I'm a bit stressed currently.  I have a ton of files that I need to put on my external HDD, as a few have suggested that I need to reinstall the OS when switching the motherboard and CPU.  

 

Is it really necessary?  Could I just go to Best Buy and have them do a PC tune up in order to rid of any bugs if I just do the "plug and play" sorta thing?  I really don't want to find all my FSX files (including traffic and scenery files), my War Thunder textures, Assetto Corsa textures, as well as other files (compilers, weather radar, etc.), and put them all on my external HDD.  

 

I don't know what to do.  

 

Any suggestions?

 

 

[Lordclouds]

1 minute ago, lazyfortress said:

I'm a bit stressed currently.  I have a ton of files that I need to put on my external HDD, as a few have suggested that I need to reinstall the OS when switching the motherboard and CPU.  

 

Is it really necessary?  Could I just go to Best Buy and have them do a PC tune up in order to rid of any bugs if I just do the "plug and play" sorta thing?  I really don't want to find all my FSX files (including traffic and scenery files), my War Thunder textures, Assetto Corsa textures, as well as other files (compilers, weather radar, etc.), and put them all on my external HDD.  

 

I don't know what to do.  

 

Any suggestions?

 

 

New hardware will require a fresh install. You could get the bad config error which is no bueno. You can pass your files by connecting your harddrive to another pc

[lazyfortress]

Just now, Lordclouds said:

New hardware will require a fresh install. You could get the bad config error which is no bueno. You can pass your files by connecting your harddrive to another pc

Pass them by connecting the HDD to another PC?  What do you mean?  

[Jurrunio]

As long as you don't mind manually setting up what apps open which types of files, you can leave those apps alone. Move them out of the boot drive, reinstall the OS, then manually locate their files when you need them. No big deal

[JohnDongus]

Another thing you can do is install the os on a different drive then map the external drives programs folder to your new boot drive. And it saves space!

[lazyfortress]

Just now, JohnDongus said:

Another thing you can do is install the os on a different drive then map the external drives programs folder to your new boot drive. And it saves space!

I don't know how to do any of this.  The only thing I kinda remember how to do is delete the hard drive partitions.  

[Lordclouds]

2 minutes ago, lazyfortress said:

Pass them by connecting the HDD to another PC?  What do you mean?  

And HDD can be connected to another pc in order to take the files out. When my pc died It did not wanted to repair and it stayed in a loop so i had to do it in order to get my vst files out

[Lordclouds]

1 minute ago, JohnDongus said:

Another thing you can do is install the os on a different drive then map the external drives programs folder to your new boot drive. And it saves space!

Yeah that is the easy way out 

but make sure that you disconnect the HHD when installing the os 

 

 

[lazyfortress]

3 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

As long as you don't mind manually setting up what apps open which types of files, you can leave those apps alone. Move them out of the boot drive, reinstall the OS, then manually locate their files when you need them. No big deal

I'm still confused, sorry.  The boot drive is the C drive, right?  I don't know how to move over 500GB of files from one HDD to another, then have them all go to their respective places in the C drive.  My textures belong to Steam games.  So if I reinstall the game, there goes my textures.

[JohnDongus]

1 minute ago, lazyfortress said:

I'm still confused, sorry.  The boot drive is the C drive, right?  I don't know how to move over 500GB of files from one HDD to another, then have them all go to their respective places in the C drive.  My textures belong to Steam games.  So if I reinstall the game, there goes my textures.

To be honest you can use a new CPU and Mobo with a old os. It MAY fuck up but it's worth a shot 

[Jurrunio]

1 minute ago, lazyfortress said:

I'm still confused, sorry.  The boot drive is the C drive, right?  I don't know how to move over 500GB of files from one HDD to another, then have them all go to their respective places in the C drive.  My textures belong to Steam games.  So if I reinstall the game, there goes my textures.

... you shouldnt install apps and the OS in the same volume if you want to swap boot drives from the start

[lazyfortress]

2 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

... you shouldnt install apps and the OS in the same volume if you want to swap boot drives from the start

What's a volume?  Like a partition?  So the OS goes in one, and the apps go in the other?  How would I separate all my files from the OS?

[Jurrunio]

3 minutes ago, lazyfortress said:

What's a volume?  Like a partition?  So the OS goes in one, and the apps go in the other?  How would I separate all my files from the OS?

they are the same thing

 

Yes

 

I mean back when you first start using this drive. When installing the OS only the install partition gets wiped, not the other partitions in the same drive.

 

How many drives do you have now?

[lazyfortress]

Just now, Jurrunio said:

they are the same thing

 

Yes

 

I mean back when you first start using this drive. When installing the OS only the install partition gets wiped, not the other partitions in the same drive.

 

How many drives do you have now?

I only have one 1TB HDD.  I can't remember for sure how many partitions there are.  So the OS is on one partition, and all the other content is on another?  So in that case, would I delete the partition that the OS is on, create a new one, install the OS again, and the files will automatically arrange themselves?

[Jurrunio]

Just now, lazyfortress said:

I only have one 1TB HDD.  I can't remember for sure how many partitions there are.  So the OS is on one partition, and all the other content is on another?  So in that case, would I delete the partition that the OS is on, create a new one, install the OS again, and the files will automatically arrange themselves?

no, it's too late if you have everything installed in the C drive already

 

Are you adding in SSD? It's easier to just install a new OS there and treat the old boot partition as a storage partition instead.

[xAcid9]

No need to reinstall window unless you can't boot into window with new mainboard + cpu. 

[lazyfortress]

1 minute ago, Jurrunio said:

no, it's too late if you have everything installed in the C drive already

 

Are you adding in SSD? It's easier to just install a new OS there and treat the old boot partition as a storage partition instead.

Nope, I'm reusing my HDD.  I wish there was a way to backup all of my C drive files, and reinstall them after reinstalling the OS (Windows 10).  I don't want to reconfigure GTA IV to hold LCPDFR, along with all the ELS settings.  FSX is already enough of a hassle.  

[Jurrunio]

7 minutes ago, lazyfortress said:

Nope, I'm reusing my HDD.  I wish there was a way to backup all of my C drive files, and reinstall them after reinstalling the OS (Windows 10).  I don't want to reconfigure GTA IV to hold LCPDFR, along with all the ELS settings.  FSX is already enough of a hassle.  

you can create system image instead, but I'm not sure if defeats the cause of reinstalling the OS in the first place

[lazyfortress]

Just now, Jurrunio said:

you can create system image instead

A system image?  What is that?  Sorry for my lack of knowledge on this stuff.  What do I do with a system image?

[Jurrunio]

4 minutes ago, lazyfortress said:

A system image?  What is that?  Sorry for my lack of knowledge on this stuff.  What do I do with a system image?

forget what I said, I'm not certain on whether system image actually ruins compatibility between the OS and new hardware. System image should carry all the old drivers and registry entries around which is really bad for what you're doing.

[SSD Sean]

My current install has gone from z97 to Z170 to x99. All I did was uninstall any hardware drivers before swapping the hardware. That and some fiddling with the uefi to match boot settings, made sure the drives were set as the proper disk letter as before once booted, and I was set for each migration. No reinstall needed. While not the case for me, sometimes the os can act screwy when doing this. So cloning over to another drive or making a system image  first to make sure things are good may be a good idea to do, anything you change in the other cloned drive won’t affect the original and you can always start back at phase one.

 

why would you ever think to bring your PC to Best Buy? They don’t know crap and charge you an arm and a leg for what we can do for you for free lol. 

[lazyfortress]

4 hours ago, SeanSSD said:

My current install has gone from z97 to Z170 to x99. All I did was uninstall any hardware drivers before swapping the hardware. That and some fiddling with the uefi to match boot settings, made sure the drives were set as the proper disk letter as before once booted, and I was set for each migration. No reinstall needed. While not the case for me, sometimes the os can act screwy when doing this. So cloning over to another drive or making a system image  first to make sure things are good may be a good idea to do, anything you change in the other cloned drive won’t affect the original and you can always start back at phase one.

 

why would you ever think to bring your PC to Best Buy? They don’t know crap and charge you an arm and a leg for what we can do for you for free lol. 

I just want to keep all of my gaming files.  I saved all my personal files to my external HDD.  What do I do?  And what's the whole deal with the UEFI?  I'm planning on putting in the new motherboard and CPU today. I'm tired of putting things off.

[SSD Sean]

I just made sure that the boot settings remained the same once I installed the new system, otherwise it wouldn’t boot. This means specifically that in the uefi I made sure csm was disabled in the new motherboard because it was disabled in the old one. And I made sure it was booting from the uefi/windows boot manager option. Not just the plain disk name option. For you, you may need to have it enabled and boot off the drive name, not uefi option. Check what your boot settings are in your current motherboard and take a photo to match them on your new one before you boot to the os. Otherwise the os might not boot and just hang. Tho sometimes the first boot or two will hang before it finally loads. 

 

What at is your old motherboard and what is your new one? 

 

 

[lazyfortress]

12 minutes ago, SeanSSD said:

I just made sure that the boot settings remained the same once I installed the new system, otherwise it wouldn’t boot. This means specifically that in the uefi I made sure csm was disabled in the new motherboard because it was disabled in the old one. And I made sure it was booting from the uefi/windows boot manager option. Not just the plain disk name option. For you, you may need to have it enabled and boot off the drive name, not uefi option. Check what your boot settings are in your current motherboard and take a photo to match them on your new one before you boot to the os. Otherwise the os might not boot and just hang. Tho sometimes the first boot or two will hang before it finally loads. 

 

What at is your old motherboard and what is your new one? 

 

 

My old motherboard used the AM3+ socket, the MSi Krait 970A SLI.  My new motherboard uses Intel's LGA1151 socket, and it's the Gigabyte B360 HD3.  My old CPU was the AMD FX-6300, and my new CPU is the Intel i5-8400.

 

Also, one question that may solve everything:

Will steam recognize a game that I copied to my external HDD and put back on my "new" computer?  I just copied all of FSX to my external HDD.  I figured that all of my files will work properly if I did so, and put them on my new PC.  I found my Windows 10 installation disk, too.

[SSD Sean]

AMD to intel might not work...do a clone or system image to another drive to have a back up of all your current os files first just in case. Then if you do reinstall you can retrieve everything.

 

I don’t know the directories you installed any modified game files, but if they are in the steam apps folder only, you don’t need to worry about losing them and they will be recognized when you launch steam from the new drive. Just move your steam folder completely.