Would I need to buy Windows 7 again?

[yesthis]

If I bought a new hard drive, SSD, SSHDD, would I need to buy a new copy of windows 7 to install, or can I just use my old one?

 

[groundrat]

Win 7 is married to the motherboard. Change anything else and your fine.

 

[Th_Redman]

No, you can reuse the same windows 7 product key if only changing a hard drive, video card etc. except the motherboard. I just reformatted last week and used the same product key...and Microsoft declared it genuine.

 

[danny2000]

I don't believe that Windows 7 Retail is married to the motherboard; I believe that only the OEM pre-install from Dell or HP and the System Builder versions are.

You would also need to remove it from the old hard drive if it is still working...which you would want to do anyhow for the space.

 

[yesthis]

Win 7 is married to the motherboard. Change anything else and your fine.

Is it really? I made a mistake a while back, I had to change to a completely new (different brand, model) motherboard after I installed windows 7, and I was still able to reformat the hard drive and install windows 7 with the same key.

 

[yesthis]

I don't believe that Windows 7 Retail is married to the motherboard; I believe that only the OEM pre-install from Dell or HP and the System Builder versions are.

You would also need to remove it from the old hard drive if it is still working...which you would want to do anyhow for the space.

Why do I need to remove it from the old one if I won't be using it?

 

[danny2000]

Why do I need to remove it from the old one if I won't be using it?

Well it is still technically installed on that drive and you could hook it up whenever you wanted which would mean that you have it installed twice, which you do, or would...it also may end up disabling your license key.

Regardless of that, why would you not want to wipe out the hard drive and use it for storage anyhow?

 

[groundrat]

If you changed out the motherboard in the 30 day window before the product is activated, you could change motherboards without issue. After the product is activated... not so much. All four of my PC's in the house use retail keys, not OEM. I don't like buying the same thing twice.

When it comes time to change the motherboard, I call up MS and tell them what’s going on and transfer the license.