The best way to give new life to your computer, without buying a new one, is by replacing the internal parts of the PC with newer, more powerful and faster hardware parts. You can buy a new video card, an additional RAM or a new hard disk (and we have seen how much faster the computer becomes with an SSD disk).
Like when you buy a new assembled computer, even when you change some important piece of the computer, such as the hard drive, there is the tedious problem of having to reinstall Windows and all programs and transfer personal files from the old PC / Disk, to the new.
Another, less common, case of hardware upgrade that can cause problems is the replacement of the motherboard, which could invalidate the Windows user license.
In this guide we see how Windows is transferred to a new PC or disk, possibly without having to reinstall it and, of course, without losing the personal data saved in the computer .
READ ALSO -> Activate system restore points in Windows 10
1) Move the hard drive physically
The easiest way to move a Windows installation is to move the old computer's hard disk to the new one, connecting it to the same SATA cable where, possibly, there is the new disk.
The hard drive of the new computer (if any) can be used as a secondary one, by connecting it to another free SATA cable that comes out of the motherboard.
The drive with Windows already installed detected and used when booting the computer by loading Windows (in case of boot problems, be sure to set the right disk to boot into the BIOS or temporarily detach the other disk).
As already seen, it is possible to install Windows on a PC assembled in this simple mode if the system is Windows 10.
This type of replacement can have in the case of transfer to a new computer with Windows 7 and 8.1.
The existing installation of Windows will include the drivers of the old and not the new computer so many compatibility errors may occur.
You will therefore need to access Windows in safe mode, uninstall the old drivers and install the new ones, perhaps using specific programs (more on that later).
Furthermore, it must be considered that the old computer's hard disk could be more damaged and slower than the one included in the new one which would be a shame to relegate to a secondary role.
2) Clone the hard disk to an SSD or other disk
A better solution, especially in the case of replacing the hard disk, is to move the entire system by cloning the hard disk, so as to immediately move all the files and have Windows running immediately.
The only important thing to check is that there is enough space on the new disk to hold the old data.
We have seen in another article the best free programs to clone the disk as a system image, but among all the programs we recommend using Macrium Reflect (free edition), simple to use and complete (the previous one, EaseUS, now only integrates this function in the paid version).
We install this program and, once the new drive is connected to the PC, start it to find ourselves in a screen similar to the one shown below.
We will have a complete tool to manage all types of backups, but for our purposes we will have to select the hard disk in use (the old one with Windows) and click on the item Clone this disk .
In the new window we click at the bottom on Select a disk to clone to to select the new disk (SSD or HDD), make sure that all the partitions of the old drive are selected and we click at the bottom on Next .
A window will open in which to set a schedule for cloning, which we can safely skip (we just have to do it once).
We click Next to see the summary window appear with all the data of the two disks, then we click Finish to start the cloning process.
After some time (depending on the size of the disks) we will have made a 1: 1 copy of our old disk on the new one, with all the programs, files and operating system perfectly working.
READ ALSO: Clone a hard disk with an exact copy on another disk also for Windows 10
3) Fix drivers after transfer (with Windows 10 this step is not needed)
In the case of transferring Windows to a new computer, the problem of wrong drivers on the cloned system still remains.
At this point, if possible, you can certainly use programs to uninstall the old and obsolete drivers and reinstall the drivers of the new computer using the discs delivered by the shopkeeper or a free program such as IObit Driver Booster, freely downloadable from here -> IObit Driver Booster .
With this program we will immediately solve any compatibility problem with any missing or corrupt drivers, even if with Windows 10 most of the peripherals are already compatible.
Better to always launch it even if there are no obvious driver problems, so as to have everything updated to the latest version.
4) Startup problems
One of the most common problems when cloning a disk is the failure to recognize boot files, which are necessary to start Windows correctly.
In these cases we can solve using the installation DVD for the version of Windows in our possession.
By starting the disk (which is automatic by starting the PC from the DVD player or USB stick by changing the boot order ) Windows will check the sectors and the space reserved for startup on the new disk or SSD drive, so you can restore the correct system startup.
The item to use on the Advanced Options screen in this case is Startup Repair .
In this regard, I refer you to reading the dedicated guide -> Ways to repair Windows 10 and create recovery disk .
Windows 7 owners can instead follow the guide below -> Create a system image in Windows 7 as a recovery and repair disk .
The Aomei Backupper program for backup, cloning and file synchronization is also very good, free and easy to use, whose guide is in the dedicated article.
5) Conclusions
To conclude, since when you transfer Windows from one PC to another (or if you change the motherboard of the computer) the purchase license is no longer recognized, you must remember to mark the product key, to be used on the new PC.
If the code has been lost or you don't remember, there are programs to recover the Windows activation code .
Then read the guide to move the Windows license and deactivate the product key from the old PC .
Moving Windows from the old PC to the new one or from one disk to another, as we have seen, may not be as smooth as we would like, however conflicts between drivers and new hardware that can cause problems and make the process much longer transfer, it's still cheaper than reinstalling Windows from scratch .
READ ALSO: All the ways to transfer files and programs from one PC to another
