Post-HW upgrade OS reinstall or upgrade?

[Abaris]

Hello, everyone!

I am upgrading my MOBO + CPU + RAM to my existing setup.

I know a Windows reinstall is needed after the upgrade, but I don't know how to proceed.

 

I have a 500GB SSD in which Windows 10 is installed alongside some programs.

Several data drives with games that I will disconnect until the migration has finished.

I have purchased a 1TB M.2 to migrate the OS to.

I have several questions:
1. What would be the best way to reinstall Windows without losing programs or the license?

2. Would at this point be just better to purchase a Windows 11 License and keeping everything as is after the HW upgrade and just upgrade to W11?

 

Note: This is my Windows type of license:

 

Thank you!

[RONOTHAN##]

14 minutes ago, Abaris said:

What would be the best way to reinstall Windows without losing programs or the license?

If you want to lose nothing, you don't want a reinstall, you want a clone. There's dozens of programs that do that, from ones that run inside Windows like Macron Reflect to ones that run off a USB Flash drive like Clonezilla. I tend to prefer Clonezilla, so that would be my recommendation, though some people prefer the in-Windows ones. 

 

You might still lose the license though, since that's usually tied to the motherboard on Windows 10/11 and not to the Windows install itself like Windows 7 did. Volume licenses might be different, but just be prepared to lose the license. 

 

16 minutes ago, Abaris said:

Would at this point be just better to purchase a Windows 11 License and keeping everything as is after the HW upgrade and just to W11?

You mean a clean reinstall and just reinstall your programs? Yeah, that would be ideal if you did want to upgrade to Windows 11. 

[Abaris]

12 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

If you want to lose nothing, you don't want a reinstall, you want a clone. There's dozens of programs that do that, from ones that run inside Windows like Macron Reflect to ones that run off a USB Flash drive like Clonezilla. I tend to prefer Clonezilla, so that would be my recommendation, though some people prefer the in-Windows ones. 

Thank you for your reply!
If I chose to clone the drive, will I have performance issues post the hardware upgrade?
Will the Cloned Windows partition know that the HW has changed?

[RONOTHAN##]

16 minutes ago, Abaris said:

If I chose to clone the drive, will I have performance issues post the hardware upgrade?

It would perform just as if you had put the current drive in the system, though with the improved read/write performance of the new SSD. 

 

16 minutes ago, Abaris said:

Will the Cloned Windows partition know that the HW has changed?

Yes, but it doesn't really care unless there's drive conflicts. 

[Abaris]

One last question:

 

If I use CloneZilla to clone the OS drive, I would do this after the HW upgrade has taken place without booting into the OS, right?

So basically:

 

1. Replace components.

2. Install M.2 SSD.

3. Boot from CloneZilla.

4. Clone C: drive.

5. Boot from newly added SSD.

6. Reformat old SSD.

[Robchil]

13 minutes ago, Abaris said:

One last question:

 

If I use CloneZilla to clone the OS drive, I would do this after the HW upgrade has taken place without booting into the OS, right?

So basically:

 

1. Replace components.

2. Install M.2 SSD.

3. Boot from CloneZilla.

4. Clone C: drive.

5. Boot from newly added SSD.

6. Reformat old SSD.

you have to clone all boot partitions too. so basicaly the entire disk

it's most likely a recovery partition at the end then so move that to the end of the disk and then expand C 

 

[RONOTHAN##]

4 hours ago, Abaris said:

So basically:

 

1. Replace components.

2. Install M.2 SSD.

3. Boot from CloneZilla.

4. Clone C: drive.

5. Boot from newly added SSD.

6. Reformat old SSD.

Pretty much. It's not that difficult of a tool to use, just follow the prompts as it asks them, going for the default options. You might need to expand the main drive partition depending on one of the options you select during the process (it's not a default option, but it's been a few months sicne I've done this so I forget the exact way they ask for it), but that's not too difficult to do inside Windows. Just make sure that the old SSD and the new SSD are the only two drives in the system when you do the clone to prevent mistakes. 

[Abaris]

1 minute ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Pretty much. It's not that difficult of a tool to use, just follow the prompts as it asks them, going for the default options. You might need to expand the main drive partition depending on one of the options you select during the process (it's not a default option, but it's been a few months sicne I've done this so I forget the exact way they ask for it), but that's not too difficult to do inside Windows. Just make sure that the old SSD and the new SSD are the only two drives in the system when you do the clone to prevent mistakes. 

Thank you! You were of great help.

I have my Bootable CloneZilla ready. It will take time for the HW change to complete because custom loop *shrugs*, but I think it will be fine. Much appreciated!

[Abaris]

I have successfully clonned my device, but drive is not booting.

I started Gparted to check what is going on, and this is what I see.

I tried moving the data partition to add the unallocated space, but it is not letting me.

 

I also tried turning off fast boot without success.

What am I doing wrong?

 

Edit:
I was able to boot into Windows after repairing Windows with the Boot CD.
However, I am still unable to allocate space.

I will dig into this and will create another thread as this is a different issue