Installing a new Internal Hard Drive

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Spades812

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Aug 12, 2015
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I recently purchased a new HDD because my old one is starting to go bad, I installed it last night and was wondering if I could copy all of my existing files to the new Drive. Uninstall the old one (After clearing all of its data) and simply go on my way. What would happen, would my computer need anything else? A swift response would be excellent as I am currently in the process of doing the copying.


As an update, The copy has completed and my new Hard drive has everything transferred. However the question still stands. I need to know whether or not I can simply physically uninstall my old HDD with little to no problems. What would I expect?
 
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stevew295

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Jun 3, 2015
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Is the drive you want to disconnect your boot/OS drive? If windows, and you only have one drive, then if you disconnect that drive, your drive will not have any operating system installed on it. Or do you mean the drive going bad was a second drive?
 
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stevew295

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Jun 3, 2015
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First, backup all your data! You'll need to do that anyway, especially critical if the drive is going bad. You could clone the drive to the new drive, but if the drive has problems, then personally I wouldn't attempt to clone it. AFTER backing up all my data, I would take the original drive out, put new drive in, install OS on new drive, get all windows updates, restore files from my Backup. Now for the big question, do you have the windows 8.1 media (DVD)?
 
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stevew295

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Jun 3, 2015
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Is the computer a Dell or some major brand? You "might" be able to contact the vendor and request a DVD, even if you have pay a nominal fee. However, I'm not familiar with windows 10, so don't know if during the upgrade MS "de-activated" the original 8.1 license. And, I don't know if you would still qualify for an win10 upgrade after reinstalling win8.1 or not. So, I'll let someone more knowledgeable respond to that.
 
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Spades812

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Aug 12, 2015
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It was originally an HP computer, though its heavily modified to the point that the only remnant of that old computer is the drive that I am hoping to replace. Would it be possible to remove or copy Windows 10/8 onto a USB stick? then reinsert it into the computer and have it install into the new Drive?

 
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stevew295

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If you mean copy the C:\windows folder over to the new hard drive, then no. If you mean copy the installation files, like on some computers are stored in a hidden partition, only if there is a "burn an installation DVD", or something like that, available. Some manufacturers don't give you a DVD, but provide the means to burn an installation DVD, usually only allowing you to burn the installation media one time only. Did the computer come with win 8.1?
 
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Spades812

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Yes it did, however I did upgrade to windows 10. While waiting for your reply I will look up way of downloading Windows 10 onto a stick or cd.

I checked my Disk and it now says OS in front of my Disk name? Does this mean that the operating system was copied to the new drive after I did the clone?
 
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stevew295

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You just checked *which disk*? I'm confused, so you DID do a clone? If you DID do a clone, then just swap out hard drives, remove old drive or disconnect the SATA cable and power from the old drive, plug the new Drive's SATA cable into the same port on MB that the old drive was connected to, and see if the new drive boots.
 
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Spades812

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Both disks have OS. If you look to one of my first posts it says that I did a clone of all necessary files.

I will be opening up the computer later for tonight to do cleaning anyway. I will attempt this and report back here with the results.
 
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