Moving Windows to new hard drive without buying again?

Operating Systems & Open Source Windows
1

I believe my current HDD is failing. Lots of slower speeds, random freezes, noises followed by sudden silence. Anyway. I am getting a new one and was wondering if it is possible to use my Windows license on the new drive. I had Windows 7 for years and upgraded to 10 when it became available so I have no disc or key.

I wouldn't think it possible given that I don't have these but if there's a way to do it I'm all ears. Would realllly prefer not to buy Windows if I don't have to. Sorry if i'm missing something and this is a dumb question. Thanks in advance for any information.

2

A) clone the drive
B) there are tools to extract the key
C) actually windows activation servers should know your PC, and assign your key when you don't change to much; the HDD should not be the culprit

3

Go for the free trial one and just clone the hard drive to the new one: http://www.acronis.com/en-us/personal/migration-software/

4

There's a way to deactivate your windows key with the current installation so that you can use it again. You can also download an install image that should let you install a fresh copy of windows from their website.

Just make a back up of any data you want to transfer.

Or clone your drive as suggested above.

5

This: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2970075/windows/why-you-cant-find-your-product-key-after-upgrading-to-windows-10.html

6

I much prefer using EaseUS Partition Master over Acronis to clone drives.
http://www.easeus.com/partition-manager/epm-free.html
Acronis puts all kinds of weird crap into your Windows system that I don't like.

To be safe you are going to need 2 drives, an SSD for Windows (please get a SSD for Windows) and a backup that will become your data drive. Backup your old drive to data. Your SSD may be smaller than your old drive, so now delete most of your documents, videos, music, etc. from the old drive so it will fit onto the SSD.

I would permanently mount your new Windows SSD and temporarily wire up your old drive. Run Partition Master and copy the whole disk. Your PC will reboot and do the copy, then boot back into Windows. At this point shut down, remove the old drive and mount the data backup. Reboot and make sure the BIOS is set to boot from the new SSD.

7

Hi, I am also about to migrate my OS Drive to a larger SSD, and was going to use Acronis, what does it put on your system out of interest?

8

It has been a while but if I remember correctly it adds things to Windows startup and the registry. I would find terminate and stay resident (TSR) software in the tray and in the Task Manager. Then I would have to run REVO Uninstaller to make sure all the crap had been removed from my system.

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9

Thanks for the warning, very nearly used this! So you recommend easeUS and it doesn't do this?

10

EaseUS is pretty good. The way it works for most operations is it writes a (Linux?) script that executes on reboot. On install it will start with Windows, but you can turn that off in the options menu.

EaseUS.jpg1158x729 228 KB

1 Like
11

Cheers, probably saved me a lot of frustration +1

13

I figure I'll throw a question in here regarding a fresh windows install. I just downloaded Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86) but it gave me no way to pick where to put it and ended put it on my games HDD. Is there a default location where it should go on my C drive? I had massive freezing problems before thanks to crap like this installing itself to wherever it pleases before and don't want to have to start from a clean slate for the third time in less than a year