Windows 7: Win 7 on one hdd, installing on 2nd hdd in same pc

Hi everyone,
I had a terrible thing happen last night, having massive problems with itunes +win 7 + p5w dh deluxe asus mobo, i tried to update the bios in the mobo...during the process the pc rebooted out of order and my mobo is dead.

anyways in happy news this is a good excuse to upgrade to a velociraptor 150gb hd, i5 intel and evga p55 micro sli mobo....

the problem is:
I have Windows 7 home premium upgrade on my original generic hdd, i have no idea how this hdd will react to the new mobo (it is SATA so i think it will be fine to browse files on). How do you all suggest i attack installing Windows 7 on the new velociraptor hdd?

I was thinking clean install on the hdd, then logging into the old Windows 7 and deactiviating the 'key' that is registered on it so i can use that key on my new install.



the other idea was to load Windows 7 from the old hdd assuming it works, run the install wizard and choose to install on the NEW hdd.

Its a bizarre circumstance and i appreciate your thoughts.

Mike, welcome to Windows 7 Support forums,
Rebuilding your system with new parts especially the motherboard with an installation of Windows 7 on the original Hard drive will not cause you issues for the hard drive. However that being said you will not be able to use that as an existing boot drive using the prenise that you have a working operating system that will boot up as if nothing happened. The reason for this is, during your original install of Windows 7 it created a hardware profile with in the O/S and since the hardware profile has changed drastically it will cause many issues!
What I would suggest is that you complete your build, install the new hard drive as SATA, C:\ leave off your old hard drive, update your bios to the latest version, same for the mobo chipset and do a clean install of Windows 7. Once that is successfully accomplished install your second hard drive, use disk manager, assign a drive letter to it and then format it using NTFS.
Try this and let us know how it went.

Regards from your friends here at Windows 7 Support forums.
Adrian

all the parts come in tomorrow and i will be getting to work

the HD itself is formatted for 64bit windows, and it has many photos, songs etc.. on it which i wish to recover. Should i be able to browse this HD from inside my new install of windows on the new HDD?

The main thing i was worried about was the activated key on the windows of the old HDD, since i will not be using this anymore (since it will not recognize the new hardware config) is this not a problem?

No, it won't be an issue for you. I think you typed that the original HDD was a SATA connect, so you will need to install the new HDD in SATA 1 and the old HDD as SATA 2. Now as long as you keep the same configuration in 64 bit for the new installation you should have no issues. I am concerned that you install the old HDD after you complete your build with the new parts and install windows 7 in 64 bit on the new HDD, that way you won't inadverdantly format your old drive by accident.

Regards,
Adrian

Adrian has given you excellent advice all around.



For all except the OEM, you can migrate retail licenses to any machine of your choice for life, as long as it is on only one machine at a time.

There is no deactivation that can be done by user other than uninstall. If it is needed because MS activation computers show a different previous hardware signature, it will be done by a robo call where a series of numbers are exchanged which deactivate the previous installation and activate on the new hardware.

If you have a lot of data and settings on your Current 7 install - you can transfer the installation to new hardware - just point Paragon Adaptive restore at it - on rebooting on the new system - all the drivers contained in the o/s will be available and it will configure itself exactly as if you had just installed it.




The difficulty is the Windows product key. You will need to reactivate.

Having two installations on the same machine is not a problem .The difficulty arises because Windows will think it is on a different machine due to the extensive hardware changes.

You might need to call the MS free activation line and explain. Should be fine as it is a retail license. Even with oem license , they allow you to do that ( but only once) if you had to replace the mobo.

ah thank you for the answers, it puts all of my questions at ease about doing this tomorrow. I love the Windows 7 modifcation forums here and this forum is even more helpful since it deals with important issues

cheers.

well everything went perfectly, except i can not activate my windows version.

i tried the regedit/slmgr rearm trick but it did not work.

do i have to just install Windows 7 again over this copy to make the upgrade work?

Run a Repair Install which should reacclimate the Hardware and refresh activation to accept the key.

ah hmm i did the automated phone activation and it actually worked. resolved, thanks everyone.