Windows 10: My computer has partitions on the hard drive how do I transfer to a new computer.

My current computer is using Windows 10 professional and has three partitions; C drive for windows and applications - D drive which holds Windows Home - Drive F holds all of my data.I am waiting for a new computer which will have Windows 11 professional installed.There are a number of questions:1. I partitioned the hard drive so I could re-install Windows 10 without causing any problems with the data files. I do not need the drive D which holds Windows 10 Home. My current computer has a HDD whereas my new one with have a SSD. Do I need to partition the new drive.2. In view of the existing p

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W7 Hard drive partition issue

to get rid of that 100 meg windows partition that setup creates for you on a new install on a blank hdd:

- press shift+f10 when on the partition management screen in setup <-- this opens a command prompt
- diskpart <-- start the windows command line partition management tool
- list disk <--- list the installed hdds in this computer for the next step
- select disk 0 <- might have to replace 0 with the number of the correct disk
- clean <-- this will erase all data on the disk you selected one step up- dont use the wrong disk!
- create partition primary <- creates a primary partition taking up all space on the drive, adjust the command if necessary
- exit, exit to exit diskpart and the command prompt
- click refresh in partition manager and select your newly created partition and install to that

 

Transferring old Hard Drive to New Computer?

Yes you'll be able to access your files no problem (from within the OS on the new hard drive). However dont count on it booting from that hard drive. The driver issues will most likely be too much, and it will just blue screen. Theres always a chance it will boot, so try it out, but its going to be a mess uninstalling all the drivers from the previous computer then installing the new ones. It wont be clean, thats for sure. Better to put the old hard drive in the new machine, back up your files to the new hard drive, then reinstall xp on the old hard drive from scratch, if you are able to do that. Ive tried transferring hard drives between computers several times, and most of the time (unless the computers are very similar hardware-wise, i.e. two dells of the same series) they just blue screen. A handful of times though, it has worked, so try it out and see.

As for the external, no it will still have the same effect, as the drivers will kill it (once again, most likely)

 

Transferring license to new computer


1. Use showkey plus from this forum to determine if your Windows 8 product key is OEM or Retail. If it is OEM, then you are done, you cannot transfer that (or the upgrade to Windows 10 from it) to the new computer:
Showkey - Windows 10 Forums

If you have a retail product key that is transferable:

2. How do you want to transfer everything? Do you want to move the physical hard drive to the new computer or copy over to the new computer? Moving the physical hard drive is easy, just move it over and go to step 3. If you want to copy over there are two ways you can do it. Get a Sata to USB adapter cable with power supply (since we are talking desktop hard drives) like this:
Amazon.com: Sabrent USB 2.0 TO SATA/IDE 2.5/3.5/-INCH Hard Drive Converter With Power Supply LED Activity Lights [4TB Support] (USB-DSC5): Electronics

Remove hard drive from new computer, connect it to old computer via USB. Then you can use MiniTool Partition Wizard to copy all the partitions over, resizing the C: drive system partition if the new hard drive is larger/smaller:
Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

Or - if you have an external hard drive already, use Macrium Reflect Free to make an image of the old computer saved to the external hard drive and then restore the image to the new computer/hard drive:
Macrium Reflect Free


Any of the above options will only work if the old and new computers have the same type of bios and same type disk partition formats - legacy bios and MBR partitioning or UEFI and GPT partitioning. You will have troubles going from one to the other. It can be done, but it's complicated.

If you don't move the physical hard drive over, you will have to remove Windows from the old computer when it gets moved over to the new computer to comply with the EULA.

3. Now, the Windows 10 moved to the new computer will deactivate itself. Go to settings, updates & security, activation and change product key. Enter the Windows 8 product key to activate it again. If you are lucky, it will activate online. Or you may get an error saying the Windows 8 product key is in use on another computer.

4. If you get the activation error, you will have to install Windows 8 on the new computer. You can do that by shrinking the Windows 10 partition to make room for a temporary Windows 8 partition, or you can use an extra hard drive (like the one from the old computer), or if you have the Windows 10 image, you can use the existing hard drive then restore the Windows 10 image after Windows 8 is activated. Once you get a temporary Windows 8 installed on the new computer, you will have to activate it over the phone. Once it is activated, I suggest you use this method to activate Windows 10:
Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First - Windows 10 Forums

Although just entering the Windows 8 product key in Windows 10 should work after activating Windows 8 on the new computer.