Moving to a new MB/CPU without a reinstall?

Harry Voyager · October 30, 2019

Was wondering if it is possible to replace the CPU/Motherboard combo without reinstalling Windows 10?

I've got an I7-4770K on a Z87 board and keep having issues recognizing the SSD on start-up. I suspect it is a timing issue (the Z87 was developed before the SSD spec was finished) and its been getting weirder lately. I've been planning a rebuild to, likely, and R7 3800X with X570 based motherboard, but because of some stuff I'm working on, I do not want to have to reinstall my core utilities until after December.

I'm wondering if I can do the hardware now, on my current Windows install, and hold of on doing the fresh, burn it to the ground install for a few months?

Thank you,

Harry Voyager

Aleks NE · October 30, 2019

5 minutes ago, Harry Voyager said:

Was wondering if it is possible to replace the CPU/Motherboard combo without reinstalling Windows 10?

I've got an I7-4770K on a Z87 board and keep having issues recognizing the SSD on start-up. I suspect it is a timing issue (the Z87 was developed before the SSD spec was finished) and its been getting weirder lately. I've been planning a rebuild to, likely, and R7 3800X with X570 based motherboard, but because of some stuff I'm working on, I do not want to have to reinstall my core utilities until after December.

I'm wondering if I can do the hardware now, on my current Windows install, and hold of on doing the fresh, burn it to the ground install for a few months?

Thank you,

Harry Voyager

I still have my old hard-drive dualbooted windows 10 and Fedora, in my new PC, after reinstalling graphics drivers it works fine. Although in previous builds I couldn't even get windows to boot. But if you reinstall the drivers it should work afasik.

GoodBytes · October 30, 2019

Windows 10 is pretty robust on hardware changes.

That said, you also have UEFI/BIOS issues. What I meaning is, if the old board is UEFI capable, but you decided to set it to Legacy mode to emulate the old BIOS, then the new board must have that same settings. If your old motherboard has SATA controller set to emulation mode (IDE), then the same must be put on the new board. Same for CSM. (Clock settings and voltage don't care).

If you have a RAID setup, then things gets complicated as each RAID card may work differently.

Stormseeker9 · October 30, 2019

Probably works, But I always recommend a fresh install.

Kisai · October 30, 2019

25 minutes ago, Harry Voyager said:

Was wondering if it is possible to replace the CPU/Motherboard combo without reinstalling Windows 10?

I've got an I7-4770K on a Z87 board and keep having issues recognizing the SSD on start-up. I suspect it is a timing issue (the Z87 was developed before the SSD spec was finished) and its been getting weirder lately. I've been planning a rebuild to, likely, and R7 3800X with X570 based motherboard, but because of some stuff I'm working on, I do not want to have to reinstall my core utilities until after December.

I'm wondering if I can do the hardware now, on my current Windows install, and hold of on doing the fresh, burn it to the ground install for a few months?

Thank you,

Harry Voyager

Short answer, yes.

Long answer, yes, but it will probably be annoying.

The z87 will support a NVme drive in a PCIe slot, but the BIOS has to actually be aware of it, and only some MB manufacturers (eg ASRock) support this. Most others only support this as an expansion card.

What you do, when you buy a new MB, is install the drivers (specifically the network drivers and NVme drivers) on the previous installation so the drivers are present in the OS.

Then tell it to reboot into safeboot mode

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-convert-mbr-disk-gpt-move-bios-uefi-windows-10

Make sure the the OS is booting from the drive in UEFI mode before you remove the old MB. Leave it in safe boot mode so that when it first boots up on the new MB/CPU it boots into safe boot mode once. Then try to boot it normally. This should reset the hardware profile so that it can successfully boot.

In most cases, especially with hardware newer than the OS, you actually want a relatively recent build of the OS (eg 1903, may 2019.) Earlier builds may not have support for the CPU/Chipset, and might not be stable to install.

If you are unable to just straight up move the MB/CPU/RAM over, then you would certainly need to reinstall. But it should work as long as the matching UEFI and RAID/AHCI mode's are set. So note down what the previous MB is set to before moving it.