Stuffing a harddrive installed with win7+games in a completly new PC.?

iTRiP said:

Yeah so i want to know if it is possible to take the harddrive from my pc and put it in a new pc ?

!Will windows 7 allow this to be?

!!What obsticles will i face i doing so?

!!!IF there is a guide to do so that would help to...

thx in advance>>>

Probably not. Drivers, different BIOS, etc.

Will the drive be the system volume, running the same Windows 7 you have been using, or do you just want to hook the drive up as a secondary one to access file from?

It would save some time, but it wouldn't be advisable. A new PC should get a new install, with new drivers. However, had you run Sysprep on both OSes before moving, you might have had a very good chance of this working. It might be too late for that now.

I'm also very much against dual boot systems, because they over complicate things, such as in this situation. If your new system has any kind of decent power, you could just virtualize XP.

You don't need to worry about a guide, or what outcomes would be, because that is unique to each system. Either it won't boot at all, or it will boot and need the new drivers loaded. You could remove your current drivers and then run Sysprep to prepare the drive. Keeping the dual boot could complicate things, so I'd plan to do without it for now. Virtualization has replaced multi-boot systems, so you probably don't need to dual-boot anymore, anyway. After you run Sysprep, you can shut down and move the drive.

I can't stress this enough though. If you want to run the cleanest, most efficient system possible, you'll do a clean install once you've assembled the new PC. It doesn't take very long if you plan ahead.

I have done it when I built this system.

It might not be possible for every system, but it was with mine.

If it does work you would have to reinstall all the drivers and the system isn't going to be as stable as a clean install though.

I would strongly suggest taking a backup of the Steam and Games, and do a clean install on the new computer.