Using an old SSD out of a laptop with windows on it for a new build.

Flint111 · November 21, 2023

I am building a PC for the first time and I have two M.2 SSDs from old laptops that I plan to use in my PC. One of these SSDs has a copy of windows on it that was installed through an activation key as a bought it from a small company where windows was optional. I was just wondering if I could use this SSD and the copy of windows on it for my new build or would I run into too many issues.

YoungBlade · November 21, 2023

You can, although it can sometimes result in issues. It's always best to do a clean install, but if you're in a crunch, it should work.

KostakisXDDS · November 21, 2023

You should really look into getting a new one. As the motherboard of the laptop is different of the pc and some times data is not stored like the windows home key you said you have on the m2. Here is a really cheap 1TB M2 NVme PCIe 4.0

Kingston NV2 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive

Flint111 · November 21, 2023

4 minutes ago, KostakisXDDS said:

You should really look into getting a new one. As the motherboard of the laptop is different of the pc and some times data is not stored like the windows home key you said you have on the m2. Here is a really cheap 1TB M2 NVme PCIe 4.0

Kingston NV2 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive

I am not to fussed about getting a new SSD its more about the Windows license. Is there any way to get to license off that SSD so I can still have Windows without spending AU$250.

SupaKomputa · November 21, 2023

25 minutes ago, Flint111 said:

I was just wondering if I could use this SSD and the copy of windows on it for my new build or would I run into too many issues.

From personal experience, yes you can. You can always reinstall if any problems exist.

25 minutes ago, KostakisXDDS said:

You should really look into getting a new one. As the motherboard of the laptop is different of the pc and some times data is not stored like the windows home key you said you have on the m2. Here is a really cheap 1TB M2 NVme PCIe 4.0

No need, why waste a good working drive. For windows keys, worse case it would just be non active, you can still use it, you can just buy a CD keys to remove the watermark.