400$ Gaming Computer hard drive/os question

ryanrhino24

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May 2, 2012
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Hello, in the next couple days I will be building a new computer, and I have a question. With the budget of 400$, it will be tough to get quality parts that i need for my build. My question is, will I be able to use my 500gb hard drive with a new motherboard? This hard drive has windows 7 installed on it, also saving me money. Here are the parts i will be using as of now, with my hard drive below.



Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500418AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148395/url

ASRock 970 EXTREME3 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157280/url

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314/url


AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103727/url


Please let me know if this hard drive will be compatible, and will function with those parts above, thanks.

 

MegaMan1

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Mar 3, 2011
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There is stuff on your drive call HAL or Harware Authentification Layer. If you change MB or CPU from what is on the HAL , it will not boot and Windows will have to be reinstalled. I have only run into this once so I am not an expert.
Your HD is Sata II and the MB only has Sata III, but it should be back compatible.
 
Well, Megaman1 is kinda right and kinda wrong. You MAY actually be able to boot with the new CPU and mobo installed, BUT it WILL fail authentication. You'll definitely need to reinstall Windows anyway (I'd go so far as to say it's required, even if everything SEEMS fine).

But as he alluded to, there will not be any problems using a SATA II HDD on SATA III. Totally fine there.
 

MegaMan1

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Mar 3, 2011
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I went from an I3 540 to I3 2100 and could boot, but from I 3 2100 to I 5 2500 it would not boot. Depends on how many things change between the two systems and if they use same drivers and a few thousand other things.