Upgrading the cpu/mobo, saving setup, software, drives.

[Bigfishy]

Not sure if this is the right spot to post my questions.

My current system is: i7-930 oc'd, gtx 480 gpu, corsair 120gb ssd, 2x caviar black 750gb hdd's, 1tb external hdd for backups.

I'm upgrading to a 3570k cpu.

I've rec'd ASRock Z77 extreme4 mobo, Zalmann cooler, 16gb gskill 1866 ram. Still need to grab the chip.

My questions are around the process of start up and keeping everything on my ssd, hdd's.

I have my original win 7 64 bit oem disc.

Now I just want to be clear on the most efficient way to start up and get everything working with all my videos, games, files, etc on the upgraded system. I presume I'll have to reinstall win 7 and that just plugging in my ssd, hdd's, wont work?

I'm only upgrading cpu/mobo (ram and cooler as well). But not familiar with the process.

Thanks for your guidance!

 

[Bigfishy]

Maybe I wasnt clear on my questions.

Will I be able to simply remove old mobo/cpu, install new mobo/cpu plug my current ssd & hdd's in, power up, update bios and be up and running without having lost anything on my drives?

 

[twelve25]

Unless the old board uses the same hard drive controller, you are going to get a blue screen on first boot. It might work if you boot off the Windows DVD and choose a repair installation. But it can be messy.

Ideally, you would move key data to other drives before doing the upgrade, remove all drives but the SSD, and then reinstall a fresh windows on the SSD. When you plug disks back in the data will be there, but you'll have to reinstall all software from original media. It's a lot more work, but the system will be cleaner.

If you have your two WD blacks in a RAID, those are hard to move to a new system unless the RAID controller is identical.

 

[Bigfishy]

So it sounds like what you're suggesting is put anything like vids, files that are on my raid hdd's to the external hdd backup, clean install win 7 to ssd, plug in hdd's, setup raid, then start DL all the software fresh and move files over from the ext hdd?

 

[twelve25]

Is it a RAID 1? You could probably break the mirror ahead of time and then it could be read like a normal disk. RAID 0, you are looking at backup and restore.

 

[Bigfishy]

yes it's raid 0. I know the raid controller is not the same since current is x58 and I'm going to z77.

 

[twelve25]

Not going to have much luck moving that RAID set. I'd just plan on backup up all important data, wiping all 3 internal drives and doing a complete new install of everything.

You could at least try plugging them in to see if they work. If it's all Intel SATA, there is a small chance it could import the config and boot windows, so it's worth a shot. But backup the data first and plan on not being able to read anything off those after the MB replacement.

 

[Bigfishy]

Best answer selected by Bigfishy.

 

[Bigfishy]

In the end, it worked out great. Left HDD's unplugged, installed OS to SSD. Then plugged in HDD's, set to raid without signifying Raid 0, reboot, expecting to get into raid config and a popup or something to clean the HDD's. Instead, it recognized both HDD's in raid during boot up and everything stayed on the drives with no issues.

I was certainly surprised.

 

[twelve25]

Cool. Sometimes everything falls into place. I just wanted you to be ready for what happens when it doesn't. Glad you are up and running.