Re-installing a Retail copy of Win7 Home Premium on new Hardware.

[clinomaniac]

Hello there,

I am hoping someone can help me. I am currently planning on upgrading one of my PC's that has a genuine retail version of 64-bit Win7 Home Premium installed.

I am planning on replacing my ageing (E5200/P35/DDR2/HDD) hardware with fresh stuff (Core i3 530/H55/DDR3/SSD).

The way I understand it is that if I were to just replace my MOBO and CPU I could just plug my old hard drive into the new mobo and use the windows disc to repair any problems it may have. However, I am planning on upgrading to an SSD as well.

My question is this, if I make a bare metal backup of Win7 off my current hard drive onto the SSD using something like Clonezilla, and then boot off the SSD once my new system is built, will there be any issues that the Win7 disc won't solve? I don't want to get all this new kit just to find I need a new OS as well.

Anyway, I hope that makes sense.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: I should add that I currently have 3 hard drives but I only have my OS on my primary hard drive so backing up my music etc isn't an issue. The SSD I'm getting is 64GB so should be fine for Win7 Install.

 

[jonpaul37]

it's a tough call.

First, once you install the OS onto a hard drive, it uses the setup files for that particular motherboard, so sometimes when moving a hard drive with an OS on it to another motherboard, it won't work because it's already loaded to a different BIOS. Other times it will work but will have issues. It usually helps if you're moving the hard drive to the same chipset /brand of motherboard.

In this particular case, you are crossing platform boundries, it will likely not work, maybe it will work if you are switching to the same motherboard brand (like ASUS P35 to ASUS H55)

My recommendation is to just call Microsoft and explain the situation to them and they will let you use the retail license version on another hard drive/motherboard once it is de-activated on the current one.

 

[clinomaniac]

Cheers for that. I think i will just wait a little and get a second copy of Win7. Seems so much less hassle and guaranteed to work.

 

[clinomaniac]

Best answer selected by Clinomaniac.