Windows 10: Windows 10 Cloning / transfer to new hardware w/o reformat?

Hi all,

Pardon the rambling nature of this post. Also, yes, I do know I could just do a full reinstall...maybe?

OK, explanation - my brother's desktop is dead. All signs point to the motherboard as it restarts constantly and randomly within 30 seconds to 2 minutes after boot. Different RAM, NO RAM, a different power supply, blowing out all the dust and reseating everything makes no difference.

Long story short, we're looking into ordering a new CPU/RAM/motherboard for his desktop PC and re-using the rest of his parts. His current main HDD is an IDE and his secondary is a SATA.

The new machine would have to have a SATA main HDD, which is fine as I have one laying around I can use (newer mobos don't have IDE ports anymore, of course). Would I be able to clone his exact Win10 install to the new drive and boot into it successfully? His Win10 copy was a 'free upgrade period' install upgraded from Win7 and it is a legitimate copy, of course. He has the copy linked to his MS account, so I've read I should be able to reactivate it if I get the new parts and boot into it...?

Does Win10 have the same issues as older copies of Windows when swapping the hard drive into different/new hardware that is drastically different like a motherboard?

Long story short...I guess I want to know if I should be able to clone the install to a new drive and then boot straight into Windows and reactivate it as if nothing ever happened? I know I will, of course, have to reinstall drivers for the new motherboard....but is the fact the old drivers for the old motherboard, etc will still be there going to screw things up?

Any thoughts or help is appreciated! *Smile Also, before I get the aforementioned 'why don't you just reformat it' comment, he has some old software he has lost the install media for and has no way to get it back, so a reformat would mean he loses that needed software...

Thanks so much in advance! *Smile

:)

 

Windows 10 Upgrade Error Code: 80073B92-20009

Can confirm it works. Have made a 5 attempts to upgrade Win 8.1 to 10, but no avail - error
80073b92-20009.. Recognized 8.1 was cloned on a new SSD but old HDD remained in a system and kept bootable. Removed old HDD and upgraded windows w/o any problem. Good luck to everybody!

 

Can not update Windows 10 due to the disk space

Hi,

if u want to transfer from one disk to another disk. kindly follow this URL.

https://www.backup-utility.com/clone/transfer-o...

Please let me know, if that helps.

Kind Regards:

Engr. Malik Yasir

 

Windows 10 is pretty good at sorting drivers so fair chance it would work.

 

Make sure that it's possible to connect to internet by wire after you switch parts so it can "pull" drivers if needed.

 

You can use one of these to accomplish the copying/cloning:
https://www.amazon.com/New-SATA-S-AT...rds=ide+to+usb

You will have to use the computer's power supply unit to power the hard drive. Unless you buy a conversion kit that includes an external power supply.

 

Yes, I have something like that but no need for that in this case because new and old are staying in the computer anyway.

 

I usually clone by plugging the drive into another computer with a USB adapter and then using CloneZilla to copy everything over.

 

The old hard drive with the OS is IDE. The old computer does not seem to be staying on long enough to image the IDE hard drive onto a SATA drive. The new motherboard is very unlikely to have an IDE interface on it.

 

Exactly...my brother's machine restarts at random somewhere in the window of 2 minutes (usually restarts after like 10 seconds).

Despite removing the RAM completely, swapping the RAM, blowing all the dust out, swapping the power supply....reseating the video card....it's still doing the restarting, so I am thinking it's a motherboard issue. Doubtful it's the CPU as usually when those go, the machine won't boot at all PERIOD - my brother's SOMETIMES boots enough for me to even get into the BIOS, but it usually restarts somewhere when I am in there, or just after I manage to get it start booting into Windows. If the CPU was borked, it wouldn't get that far.

 

Oh sorry, I thought you were talking about my system.