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Can I reuse a hard drive with Windows on it?

MrNoFro
By MrNoFro
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Go to solution Solved by Missioncode,

Would I use the same windows activation key that I'm running currently then?

Well you can but there is some problems. You cant just throw it in there and have it work without a lot of headache and blue screens. 

You can how ever use the same windows key and use the HDD.

You can get the key by just using a program to find all your keys windows word etc. and print it out ( Dont forget this as I did this but just saved it on the HDD I was going to wipe)

 

You'll just have to either A backup everything and reinstall it

or B just redownload everything and then reinstall it (bad if you have slow internet)

 

I would go with B if you can as some programs get wonky if you just copy and paste them from machine to machine. 

 

Let me know if you need more info. 

Posted

     Simple question really, but this Christmas I am going to be doing a build for myself, and planned on reusing my 1TB HDD with Windows 7 Home

 

Premium 64-bit on it for my new rig, but I've had a few tell me that you cannot do this? Really just asking for some clarification...

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     Simple question really, but this Christmas I am going to be doing a build for myself, and planned on reusing my 1TB HDD with Windows 7 Home

 

Premium 64-bit on it for my new rig, but I've had a few tell me that you cannot do this? Really just asking for some clarification...

maybe maybe not.

buy an ssd to put windows on then install everything onto hdd/sdd as you please

 

 

 

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Just get version of windows from a friend and put it on a usb drive and when you are installing it into your new system reformat the drive 

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Just get version of windows from a friend and put it on a usb drive and when you are installing it into your new system reformat the drive 

Would I use the same windows activation key that I'm running currently then?

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They are telling you that you cannot take your old hard drive, format it, put it in your new build and use it with that?
Never listen to anything that person has to say ever again. 

If you want to use the same product key for a new install of windows, just install it, use the same product code, and you're good. 
I currently have 3 machines running off of one code. 

 

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Would I use the same windows activation key that I'm running currently then?

Well you can but there is some problems. You cant just throw it in there and have it work without a lot of headache and blue screens. 

You can how ever use the same windows key and use the HDD.

You can get the key by just using a program to find all your keys windows word etc. and print it out ( Dont forget this as I did this but just saved it on the HDD I was going to wipe)

 

You'll just have to either A backup everything and reinstall it

or B just redownload everything and then reinstall it (bad if you have slow internet)

 

I would go with B if you can as some programs get wonky if you just copy and paste them from machine to machine. 

 

Let me know if you need more info. 

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Would I use the same windows activation key that I'm running currently then?

You can use the same HDD and the same product key, just like they said above get a version of windows put it on a USB stick, or you can download and burn the iso into the usb drive just watch a tutorial on youtube, and you're going to see an option to format drive before you install windows, do that and you should be good to go.

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