Transferring a hard drive

[ZiyaadD]

Today I just built my first ever PC, upgraded from a laptop (acer aspire 15.6)

 

I do not have windows, and need a boot device. If I transfer the hard drive from my laptop into my PC and use it as a secondary hard drive will this work.

Also will I be able to transfer windows to my SSD if I do this.

 

I was also planning on getting an SSD for my laptop, if I do this will I need to purchase windows (for the laptop)

[AndreiArgeanu]

16 minutes ago, ZiyaadD said:

I was also planning on getting an SSD for my laptop, if I do this will I need to purchase windows (for the laptop)

If it's semi modern you don't need to purchase windows. But you need to install the version that came with the laptop (home/pro etc.) for it to automatically activate.

 

16 minutes ago, ZiyaadD said:

Also will I be able to transfer windows to my SSD if I do this.

Unlikely, you're very likely to run into various issues, it's best you make a fresh install. As for a license key, you can probably grab some windows 7 pro/ultimate license from the internet to activate windows 10 pro, or 7 home to activate 10 home. Either that or you pay like 3$ for one of a key website.

 

[ZiyaadD]

9 hours ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

If it's semi modern you don't need to purchase windows. But you need to install the version that came with the laptop (home/pro etc.) for it to automatically activate.

 

Unlikely, you're very likely to run into various issues, it's best you make a fresh install. As for a license key, you can probably grab some windows 7 pro/ultimate license from the internet to activate windows 10 pro, or 7 home to activate 10 home. Either that or you pay like 3$ for one of a key website.

 

I can get it for as little as three bucks, are you sure about this? Why do CPU building companies charge upwards to a 80 pounds?

[YoungBlade]

22 minutes ago, ZiyaadD said:

I can get it for as little as three bucks, are you sure about this? Why do CPU building companies charge upwards to a 80 pounds?

Those keys are gray market - i.e. Microsoft is not intending to offer the product at that price to you, but they are being sold to you by a third party who doesn't care much about the license terms. Software is often cheaper in underdeveloped countries, when sold in bulk, etc. and these sites sell those types of keys. So the key might have been intended to be used in computers for schools in Africa, for example, and Microsoft sold them for less than $3 each (or maybe even gave them away), but the purchaser had extra keys left over and decided to make a quick buck by selling them to some random people online.

[AndreiArgeanu]

35 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

Those keys are gray market - i.e. Microsoft is not intending to offer the product at that price to you, but they are being sold to you by a third party who doesn't care much about the license terms. Software is often cheaper in underdeveloped countries, when sold in bulk, etc. and these sites sell those types of keys. So the key might have been intended to be used in computers for schools in Africa, for example, and Microsoft sold them for less than $3 each (or maybe even gave them away), but the purchaser had extra keys left over and decided to make a quick buck by selling them to some random people online.

Either that or they could just be older OEM keys for Windows 7, I used the key of the back of my optiplex to activate 4 different machines and everything was fine, I wouldn't be surprised if some sellers do that as well.