[Gdn8Melbourne]

I use Linux. But I was thinking to buy Windows 10 to play games and use adobe products. But I have the following questions -

1. Suppose I buy a windows 10 (shop or online or Microsoft store whatever). And I install it in one machine (one ssd). But later I want to migrate to a completely new machine (new mobo, cpu, RAM). Can I just take the ssd and plug it in in new system and it will run fine?

2. Suppose I make a complete image copy of the first ssd and copy it to a new ssd and use the new one only, Will it run fine?
If yes, please provide which softwares are capable of making such harddisk image.

3. I would still use Ubuntu as my main OS. And windows as secondary. But both of them will be on separate SSDs. So I would want to be prompted which ssd I want to boot. How to do that?

 

[DBCooper]

Hi there,

1.) Unfortunately, you can't just swap out HDD from one computer to another computer. The HDD will have the configurations of the old computer on it and in order for the new computer to boot to Windows that's installed on the HDD, you will need to perform a Windows Repair on the computer. However, for best performance, it is advised to install Windows fresh on a new computer.

2.) Copying the OS image and everything from an one SSD onto another SSD should be ok, and your computer should run fine as long as the computer that the SSD was copied from has the same computer hardware. *****Somebody feel free to correct me if i'm wrong.*****
***I have done this before with plenty of SATA hard drives. I would re-image the HDD of a computer onto another HDD, and the computer would boot to the HDD fine as long as the computer hardware components are the same.

Hope everything works out well for you.

 

[spunk.funk]

When Windows is installed on a computer, it takes a snapshot of the hardware, Chipset, and Motherboard and loads drivers specifically for that computer. If you remove the drive or clone it and put it into a different computer, when the computer tries to boot, it will look for the previous hardware and it will not find it and it will BSOD or not boot.
If you De-Commission a computer, you can move the Windows 10 license to a new computer after a clean install.

 

[kevindark]

I use Linux. But I was thinking to buy Windows 10 to play games and use adobe products. But I have the following questions -

1. Suppose I buy a windows 10 (shop or online or Microsoft store whatever). And I install it in one machine (one ssd). But later I want to migrate to a completely new machine (new mobo, cpu, RAM). Can I just take the ssd and plug it in in new system and it will run fine?

2. Suppose I make a complete image copy of the first ssd and copy it to a new ssd and use the new one only, Will it run fine?
If yes, please provide which softwares are capable of making such harddisk image.

3. I would still use Ubuntu as my main OS. And windows as secondary. But both of them will be on separate SSDs. So I would want to be prompted which ssd I want to boot. How to do that?

#1. You can migrate to a new system with some helps of third-party apps to move the whole OS. Without those programs, you will surely get blue screen of death errors. That said, you won't be able to just swap the HDD/SSD and boot from another PC. It's impossible!

#2. I don't remember name of those apps, but there are some apps allow you to clone Windows OS to another HDD/SSD for other PCs.

#3. For example, if you have two SSD: SSD #1, and SSD #2, and installed Windows and Ubuntu on them, respectively, then you can choose to boot from those SSD whenever you want. Just change this setting from BIOS/UEFI, or press F8 when booting and select the SSD to boot from.