Wipe everything off hdd except os

TenPc

Honorable
Jul 11, 2012
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Before you wipe, restore or do anything irreversible, create a Repair disk in case something goes wrong and you end up with no OS or and a blank hdd.

You may want to try to fix your current issues rather than having to restore to factory Settings, which only works if the factory actually installed the OS in the first place and if they didn't then the hdd will be wiped blank.

What's wrong with the PC?
 
what system is this coming out of an what are you trying to put it into. Your OP says you're building a new system, if so the motherboard is going to change and this will cause major issues with the os your trying to save. It would save you a lot of time if you buy a new os for the new system.
 
I'm guessing your going from an older system to a much newer one. This means your jumping a wide gap in chipsets and the os you have now with all its drivers will not play nicely with the new motherboard. There are ways if you're staying with the same chipset say an asus z77 board to msi z77 board that you could use the same os on both boards.

If its more of a move from a core 2 cpu to the new lg1155/1150 cpu then there is now way to get the old os to make the move. In this case you will need a new os for the system.
 

ram1009

Distinguished
If you're using an OEM version of Windows it is forever tied to the MB of the computer it was first installed to. Whether or not you wipe all but the OS it will not be authorized by Microsoft. Also, all the drivers will be different for the new computer so it's doubtful it will even boot and besides that it's a bad idea to re-use a HDD. They fail randomly and the older they are the more frequently they fail.