Hi there wondering what's the existing way to replace a mobo and CPU, do I need to reformat to ensure old drivers don't interfere with the new motherboard or should I maybe just keep the old drivers on the hard drives and instead just get a new SSD (looking to get one anyways) and then reinstall new drivers and OS on the SsD?
Thanks in advance
Thanks mate really appreciate it!
If you have enough space, and are confident that you don't need access to.your old.install (in terms of booting it up), you can safety install on your existing ssd, into your existing partition. You still do a "fresh install” boot from USB or DVD etc, and when you finish, your old windows, " program files" folder, "users" folder will all be in "c:\Windows.Old\"
Unless you particularly want to, there's no need to buy a new ssd.
Also, YMMV, but you can almost definitely swap the HDD into a new computer as is, windows will almost definitely boot.
I can confirm this works, even going from Intel to AMD. W10 is a lot better in that regard than it used to be.
You don't need to reformat, but you can do a 'refresh' or 'reset' of Windows 10 which essentially reinstalls Windows without completely removing user data. It'll preserve your "My Documents" folders and also create a list of Applications that got wiped out which you can refer back to again.
Any files you created gets moved a a Windows.old directory which deletes itself after 30 days, so make sure you get anything you need out of it.
Just go to Cortana / Windows search bar and search for "Reset this PC"
Thank you, can I do a reset of PC then just swap mobo and CPU after?
Swap first and then reset PC
Excellent, cheers!
If it's Windows 10 you should be able to get away without driver issues - at least nothing showstopping except for storage drivers, eg. if you had the system drive set up in a form of RAID mode then you'd need to ensure the new mobo is set up the same (RAID or AHCI if those were used) otherwise it won't boot. Afterwards you can install chipset drivers etc as needed, but in general if the hardware isn't installed the driver just isn't used so there should be no conflicts as such.
Do keep in mind that with W10 the license is generally tied to the motherboard so it may no longer be activated - you can usually transfer the license if you go into the settings and use the tool to troubleshoot activation problems.
That said, a fresh install will always be better just being that Windows is far from perfect and while you probably won't have issues, it's always possible. Depends how much time you have, you can usually get away without the reinstall if you just want a functioning system now but if you have the time then a reset or fresh install will be preferable.
Thank you!
IMO you should when possible do a fresh install on a blank drive.
As you suggested, I would get a new SSD and install onto that, then put in the old drive and copy over what you need/organise your files.