Replacing only system drive

[MLG Doge]

So there are two tower computers in my household.

Mine and the "house one" (an older PC running a LGA 775 Pentium and windows 10)

i decided to check the HDD using CrystalDisk after my sister pointed out some clicking noises from it the other day and un-surprisingly, the OEM Hitachi drive is failing.

So a 1TB caviar Blue has been bought which i am going to chuck in my PC with the old one and transfer the files across. 

 

So my question is, will i have to reinstall windows onto the new HDD or should it literally be 

Copy files --> put new HDD in and ready to go.

 

If i do need to reinstall windows, how do i go about finding the OEM key?

 

Cheers lads

[deWaardt]

If the OEM drive is not too far gone, you could try to clone it using a tool like Macrium Reflect.

If the drive is too far gone, Macrium Reflect might fail to clone.

Otherwise, simply copying the files from one hard drive to the other will not work.

 

For a failing hard drive, I recommend installing the new one, reinstalling the operating system on the new one and then start recovering files from the failing one.

Finding the OEM key... On some PC's I've had it's printed on the sidepanel of the PC, or in the manual. If you have recovery DVD"s with your PC, you could try to use these as these usually automatically activate.

[MLG Doge]

36 minutes ago, deWaardt said:

If the OEM drive is not too far gone, you could try to clone it using a tool like Macrium Reflect.

If the drive is too far gone, Macrium Reflect might fail to clone.

Otherwise, simply copying the files from one hard drive to the other will not work.

 

For a failing hard drive, I recommend installing the new one, reinstalling the operating system on the new one and then start recovering files from the failing one.

Finding the OEM key... On some PC's I've had it's printed on the sidepanel of the PC, or in the manual. If you have recovery DVD"s with your PC, you could try to use these as these usually automatically activate.

Thanks very much

[abhiflares]

Nothing like a good ol google search

 

http://www.nextofwindows.com/how-to-retrieve-windows-8-oem-product-key-from-bios

http://www.howtogeek.com/206329/how-to-find-your-lost-windows-or-office-product-keys/

 

i have tried it on windows 8, it worked like a charm, should work on windows 10 as well

[Silver47]

57 minutes ago, MLG Doge said:

So my question is, will i have to reinstall windows onto the new HDD or should it literally be 

Copy files --> put new HDD in and ready to go.

Based on personal experience I'd say do a reinstall, because a cloned Windows can sometimes be a bit of a diva. But you could get away with cloning your drive, since it seems to work without any problems for a lot of people lately. So if you really don't want to go through the process of reinstalling, I suggest go ahead and use some proper cloning-software, like acronis for example and you might be good. 

1 hour ago, MLG Doge said:

If i do need to reinstall windows, how do i go about finding the OEM key?

You can read out your OEM key with software like "speccy" (a system information tool from the guys who code ccleaner). 

1 hour ago, MLG Doge said:

Cheers lads

Cheers mate