Upgrading my PC!

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Pirran

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#169669 22-Mar-2015 15:20

I built my current PC several years ago and it is slowly failing to be the gaming PC I made it to be. At the end of 2013, I moved from Portugal to New Zealand and brought it with me- customs shattered the case so when it got here, I replaced the case and got the local computer shop to also switch my striped RAID with a 2TB HDD to help with space.

Now that I can, I have gone ahead and ordered a new motherboard, RAM, CPU and graphics card to move into my nice case (NZXT Phantom). I want to keep my hard drive- I cannot re-install a lot of the programs on it as most of my discs are in Portugal still. My Windows 7 key is saved on my PC if I need it, though it is an OEM from an old workplace.

I am competent with hardware (obviously, as I originally built this machine) but I haven't ever upgraded so much at once while keeping such an important disc. Many places online say that Windows may not boot afterwards, but I have messed around with old drives, PCs and hardware for years and haven't ever had a problem like that.

Is it truly necessary to do a sysprep on the drive? Many places show how to do it but it doesn't explain what it does precisely- it does say it keeps everything intact but knowing what sysprep does (guessing it wipes all drivers) would be useful.

Rough specs (on my laptop and haven't memorised all of my old specs, so they're not detailed)

Upgrading from:
CPU: Intel Quad Core
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R
RAM: DDR2 (6GB total)
Video card: ASUS HD6570

Upgrading to:
CPU: AMD FX-8320 Eight-Core AM3+
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-970A-D3P
RAM: Ripjaws DDR3 (8GB total)
Video card: GeForce GTX 750 FTW version 2GB DDR5

I am very excited for this upgrade. So excited, I actually forgot to buy thermal paste with the order yesterday but if my friend doesn't have any spare, it won't be a bother to buy some later this week. I'm planning on doing the upgrade next Saturday (28th March).

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#1265095 22-Mar-2015 15:52

You are not upgrading your PC - you are building a completely new one!

You will need to do a fresh install of Windows 7 as almost everything has changed.
Personally I would buy a new HDD for the new PC, install Windows on it, and keep your "old" HDD as backup (or as a second HDD).

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timmmay

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#1265096 22-Mar-2015 15:53

You could try putting the HDD into the new machine see if it works. If not you can try a fresh install, or better yet just install Windows 10 tech preview. It's free, it's the only OS on my computer, and it's a free upgrade for everyone when it's released in a few months.

An SSD would make it feel much faster.

No idea what sysprep is.

lNomNoml

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#1265125 22-Mar-2015 16:13

Use the magical jelly bean program to get your Windows 7 key, then download yourself a OEM version of Windows 7 and install it with the key.

Pirran

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#1265146 22-Mar-2015 16:37

Re-installing Windows would lose my programs, games and all the rest of my data, though. I'm looking for something that may help keep my current drive in the chance that it won't boot when I do hand it over to the new hardware (something like Paragon Adaptive Restore, for example). I'm really hoping that it's one of those things where I'll get lucky and it'll boot, but as I said before- I've used old hard drives in all sorts of different cases and never had an issue. Re-activating Windows, however, shouldn't be a problem unless there's an issue with it being an OEM licence.

timmmay

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#1265154 22-Mar-2015 16:48

Get Macrium Reflect Free, create a boot DVD/USB, boot from that and take an image of your hard drive. That way you have some protection anyway. The non-free versions help move windows to another disk.

Get your disks sent from Portugal.

gzt

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#1265202 22-Mar-2015 17:49

Use sysprep. It removes and resets all machine specific config, then when you boot that same disk on a diffent machine it runs windows setup like for the first time and installs the new hardware correctly instead of a big blue screen mess to sort out.

Lias

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#1265266 22-Mar-2015 19:07

You don't need to Sysprep.

Windows 7 and above for the most part will just work when you change the hardware. My current install of windows has gone through about 3 motherboard changes.

I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad, a Quic user, and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. If you use my Quic signup you can also use the code R570394EKGIZ8 for free setup.

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Pirran

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#1265339 22-Mar-2015 20:32

I'm going to choose not to sysprep. I'll be crossing my fingers, but as it's an OEM installation, I have seen a lot of posts explaining that sysprep won't work properly as it's against the OEM licence. Worst case scenario, I'll have to buy a second licence, but I'd really rather not have to.

timmmay

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#1265341 22-Mar-2015 20:34

I changed the motherboard on my PC this week, Windows 10, it worked fine.

I really, really recommend doing the Reflect image before you do anything. Make sure you have an external disk to back up onto, backing up onto the disk you're imaging isn't ideal. Delete any temp files and rubbish before you take the image.

Pirran

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#1265350 22-Mar-2015 20:48

I'm buying an external on Thursday to specifically use for the backup, I really don't want to lose anything if it happens to go haywire. Thanks for the tips!

richms

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#1265372 22-Mar-2015 22:18

Anything important should already be backed up.

I have had only minor issues with booting 7 on different hardware. That has been changing between CPU types and generations, an old athlon 64 install was not happy when put onto a modern i7 system. Other than that, staying within intel it has been fine.

Richard rich.ms

Pirran

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#1272536 28-Mar-2015 18:24

The transition today went flawlessly, save for two minor points:

Windows did deactivate, but I had saved my original key in my documents folder and using that reactivated it without any trouble.

The ethernet controller wouldn't install automatically, and I had a lot of trouble getting the correct ones. This was a known issue according to Google, especially with Gigabyte motherboards. Eventually I used the one from the motherboard disc (moved to USB because I need to get an extra molex to connect my disc drive) and it worked fine.

I am extremely happy with my upgrade! It's running surprisingly quietly and the whole set up looks gorgeous through the window of my case.

linw

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#1272610 28-Mar-2015 22:28

Well done. Yep, I have done a few disk transplants with very little hassle. Even Vista coped extremely well on one of my disk changes.