New PC but old harddrive (with windows, games etc.), does it work straight away?

[Jonathan1forall]

I'm planning on building a new pc, but got a question. I'm going to put an new ssd in it and use next to that my old harddrive. Does the pc work straight away then, with no need for installing stuff? Does it go to the desktop like the old one? And can I move windows and other games after that to the ssd? Can someone explain?

 

As you see I'm not all that experienced and would really appreciate your help, thank you!

[Electronics Wizardy]

What os?

 

Should work most of the time. 

[Wrb]

Possibly, if you set the boot drive as the hard drive and none of the data has been lost, it might work. But I might be best to backup and reinstall windows when you get your SSD so windows can optimize for it.

[VinZie]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What os?

 

Should work most of the time. 

As long as you set your boot drive to your HDD then you should boot into the OS you have installed onto it.

[iBabySlapper]

There's a good chance the PC will boot as normal, but there's also a good chance that it either won't boot at all. or you'll be in windows for a couple seconds until you get a BSOD. So you might as well bite the bullet and freshly install to your new SSD. THis depends on how different your old PC is compared to your new one.

 

Also, your windows license will be invalid if your license came with your PC, so you'll have to look at eBay for a Windows key. I've been buying keys off eBay for years now and I've never been let down, you can get them for like £2 a license these days too.

[yXea]

Id just reformat your old HHD, install windows on your SSD and let the SSD be a boot drive and the HHD for Steam games/video

[Leadneck]

So, let me see if I understand you...

 

You currently have a functioning PC with Windows and your games on a normal spinning hard drive.  You are going to build a new PC with an SSD, but would also like to transfer your current HDD into the brand new PC and use it alongside the SSD.

 

If this is the case, then just transferring the old Hard Drive will work no problem. But you won't be getting the benefit of your SSD without some additional work.

 

You can't just copy paste your Windows install and games to the SSD and have them function right away. You will need to either use some drive cloning software, capture a disk image to apply to your new SSD, or just install a fresh copy of Windows on the SSD.

 

The easiest would be drive cloning software I think. But, I have never used any since I just use dism for stuff like this so I can't recommend any that are easy, but a google search should help with that.

 

I would suggest just installing a new copy of Windows onto the SSD first and then inserting your old HDD afterwards to copy paste over anything you want to keep. This will be the best way to avoid complications as well as take full advantage of the SSD speed!

[Electronics Wizardy]

26 minutes ago, VinZie said:

As long as you set your boot drive to your HDD then you should boot into the OS you have installed onto it.

But older ones like to not work due to drivers. Also bios vs uefi boot.