Replacing harddrives

[barrythemajestic]

Hi
I recently moved overseas so I decided to take my harddrives (with bootable OS in it) with me from my desktop computer. And I want to buy a new computer, so if I put my bootable HDD in the new computer, would it detect my old harddrives OS and recognize my files. Or is it better just to do a clean install.?

I am running Windows 7

Cheers
Barry

 

[WyomingKnott]

It is better to do a clean install. The old OS installation has drivers specific to your old motherboard, chipset, and the various other devices that were on your old machine.

What you _can_ do is boot the Win7 installation disc and choose to do a Repair installation. That will look for missing drivers that correspond to your current hardware and install them. Boot to Win7 and, if it works, immediately update all your drivers. Keep in mind that there is a small risk of losing data if you choose to do this and do not have a backup copy.

Good luck.