How to move OS drive to new PC and keep Windows and Activation! EASY! 

It needs to be said again; Jay, putting aside your own invaluable contributions to your channel, your production staff are simply fantastic. The little editing add-ons and clean production sure shows you have a great team. For example, that little fast forward in old-style format is a great touch. I know I'm blowing smoke up butts here, but so what. Sometimes people need to be recognized and not taken for granted by viewers.

Oh this sounds like something I'm gonna need when I do a new build in a couple years *saved*

You do not have to activate by phone. Click troubleshoot. It will give you a list of computers you have on your account. You pick the one you are replacing.

I remember the days when Microsoft was very skeptical that you 'replaced your motherboard'. So glad they wised up.

Where was this yesterday when i needed it? 😂

One thing I always do too is go into Device Manager, Show Hidden Devices, and uninstall all of the old items from old board. I just find it cleans it up Device Manager and has prevented me issues later on at times. I have used the Activate Windows feature for so long now when switching hardware. Great video Jay!

Still running off my Windows 7 key. Got the free 10 upgrade. Got the free 11 upgrade. On my 4th harddrive since 2010. Not sure how, not sure why. They just keep giving me free Windows when I change drives. Yes, I have a Microsoft account. All it does is ask if I'm changing to new parts. "Boom, here's a free Windows install."

This is such perfect timing as I'm soon building a new rig with only my SSDs moving across. Thank you

There is also a way to manually remove the windows key from the motherboard. it does involve using some commands, but i've done it and it works just fine. Just make sure to write down the key number BEFORE you remove it from the motherboard otherwise its gone.

@jaytwocents you have no clue how much this helps. I literally just finished a new build not even 72 hrs ago and just swapped over my drives and ran into the windows activate thing and have yet to figure it out. 🎉 I swear you read my mind with this video. Thank you thank you thank you.

I kept the same Windows installation (besides updating from 7 to 10) through three different builds on a spinny hard drive. Ten years of accumulated crap, and things were very slow at that point. I could turn the system on and go make a coffee while waiting for Windows to boot up. I finally moved to an SSD two years ago, and my goodness! Best upgrade I ever did.

09:19 Baby, this is what you came for.... Lightning....

Bro I was JUST going to be getting a new PC, this literally couldn't be more perfectly timed.

wow. I'm doing this later today. great timing

As someone who has done this too many times to count, thanks for making this video. I've been making it much more painful than it needs to be (i scorch/salt and start clean each time because I'm always worried about pointers and under the covers stuff not being able to reconcile new hardware). Love this type of content yall!

I do lots of these at work, and recommend running neowin ghostbuster to clean up drivers no longer needed. Its a good idea to delete your system restore points and create a fresh one too.

This is crazy, my teen son and I built a new PC last night and did exactly that, i. e. put the system drive from old PC destined for parts. I was getting ready for all the pain associated with the move but the PC loaded Windows 10 no problem. It did not even ask for reactivation (yet?) and Windows 11 installed during the update! Absolutely smooth relocation. And, thanks to you, guys, now I know what to do if it decided to ask for reactivation. You rock!

IIRC Windows Licence Keys are now attached or able to be attached to a Microsoft-Account, and when logged in itll activate it on its own.

Jay you have no idea how much this helped me, I'm literally going to build a new computer today and use the same NVMEs form the old one (with windows 11 on it). So Thank you for the great video and keep up the great content!! New build I5 13700k, zotac 4080super (white), NZXT Kraken cooler (360, white), Gigabyte Z790, 1000w PSU and corsair DDR5 6400mhz, NZXT H6 Flow

The only thing J forgot to mention is that the system has to have UEFI enabled on both computers and no raid.

jay you can also just go to activate then go to troubleshoot and chose the licence you want to use

4:30 also Jay, if you felt comfortable, you could mount the AIO 280mm vertical, using just the middle set of screw holes, then fab some vertical mount, but then I guess it becomes a whole thing of changing what the case has available.

Upgrading this week so this video came out at exactly the right time!

Saved this video for future mobo swap. The end bit gave me a good chuckle :D Looking forward to the next one :)

Definitely will look at this later when I need to update my sons set up this Christmas. Going from a SATA to an nvme

Thanks, I was worried about about this issue

This takes me back to the XP days working in a repair shop. Back then, a lot of costumers brought in a prebuilt from a brand called Medion which in our shop was notorious as they always seemed to break right after the factory warranty expired. They were cheaper than competitors when it came to specs so I'm sure they must've bought bulk hardware that may or may not have barely passed Quality Assurance, at least back then. Replacing motherboards was almost a daily thing and as you say towards the end, back then it would bork and require a fresh install. Calling MS to activate Windows was also a daily thing we did 😂 and 9 out of 10 times we had to wait to speak with an actual person and explain the situation time and time again.

I just asked myself this question earlier today thanks Jay!

That is good to know! Thank you.

excellent timing, upgrading my pc this weekend

Finally, an actual how-to video from JTC

This is amazingly simple! Thanks a ton. Now, I can upgrade from AM4 to AM5 painlessly.

This is great! Last time I swapped mobo’s did a fresh install. Next mobo upgrade I may try this.

Hard parts used to be migrating between two drives going ide to sata, sata to nvme, or BIOS to UEFI boot layout changes due to missing drivers & trying to spin up a valid boot change. Some motherboards had other incompatible chipsets from one to the next where attempting to load the old drivers bluescrened on the new hardware.

Exactly the video which I needed! Thank you! : )

THANK YOU, Jay. This is going to save me days of tweaks and configs when I got to AMD 9series

Nice timing! I just bought a new pc build and I need this guide badly! Thanks a lot!

Very useful one, thanks!

Jays ads are genuinely amazing 😂

Thanks for the very practical and useful video. I have done this recently and was surprised that it was so painless (even on a dual boot system where grub is in charge and windows is an add on for the handful of games that won't run in Linux).

If I've learned anything from not having enough space to mount fans using washers as spacers comes in a lot of help.

I've never attempted to move a Win11 install to another motherboard, but with previous versions, I would just remove all motherboard drivers and then transfer the install. Worked every time.

There is also a way to manually go to the phone activation if you don't have it there, you just have to run "SLUI 4" as a command

Great video Jay and perfect timing. Getting my son a new PC and he doesn't want to have to reinstall windows.

It does mostly works even when the chage is very big. I wen form a i78700k to a 14700k and everything worked like a charm then just installed the new drivers for everything and was 100% working

I have only ever just swapped the drive and let windows update handle it. Worked every time. Never had an issue.

For the ASUS RAM Aura glitch... What you have to do is go into your applications and delete Aura, then go to task manager and kill the processes for the lighting application(if it's still exists as a process) and immediately or simultaneously go into your program files under ASUS and Aura and delete all your HAL folders if those exist... Once you do that, restart your computer. Double check to make sure there's no more ASUS folders in either program folder. The same thing will happen on any RAM kit as soon as you either change the motherboard or if you move that RAM kit temporarily and then put it back into that same motherboard that has been run with another set of RAM. Aura will try to run the lighting profiles simultaneously, and the only way to get that to stop is to do a reset of the application in settings or to totally uninstall all components and reinstall. Oh way to make eight this is to turn off Aura before you do any sort of change to your hardware but that doesn't work all the time.......... Love you! And even though I hate ASUS for the same reasons you do, I bought all ASUS things before I really understood what I was doing to myself.. lmao

Moved from a prebuilt HP pc, to my own picked hardware, only things made it over was my windows drive and a separate storage drive. Plugged everything in and windows started no issues. One small prompt of moving liscenced to new hardware, and boom done. This was after logging in with my windows account.

I've upgraded boards and CPUs before twice. The first time, I had to call Microsoft for the reactivation. Just told them that I upgraded my machine and did the confirmation ID process. Then I moved my hard drive again to another board, after the free W7 to W10 free upgrade. It worked seemlessly. Oh, a Pro license makes it does that. A Home version license might not. Of course, there's gonna be some need to update drivers and stuff, and some crumbs may be left in storage after the update. Though I never really had any major issues with the migration, I did end up doing a clean install a few years later, using the same Windows license. And lastly, if you have a Microsoft account, paid or free, and have your OS license tied to it, signing in to the upgraded machine will make the activation somewhat automatic.

Hello Jay, Regarding the case and AIO placement, i think this would be the perfect task to use the 3d printer to print a spacer

Thanks Jay!

The new test bench is cool, but that final mod *chef's kiss*

i figured it was that simple nowadays cause im about to do the same thing with a new build for my bro, and this confirmed my suspicions

Another great informative video. It will be very helpful for future builds. I'd like to see more videos like this.

Even easier if you just click troubleshoot. Won't work every time, but I've yet to have it fail. That will take you to an option to quickly transfer your license from old system to new system. EDIT: More specifically it will have an option for "upgraded hardware" to get to that license transfer option.

The more involved thing is moving your windows installation from one drive to another and then to a new computer. My old PC is still running a 1TB SATA SSD and obviously in the days of cheap 4TB M2 (and nearly affordable 8TB ones) that doesn't cut it anymore for a new system. Gonna be quite a thing, but i hope i will manage it in the end. Doubt it makes for a good video tutorial though.

What’s crazy is I recently upgraded my motherboard, slightly better chipset, and a different manufacturer; fully expecting this problem. It didn’t happen, even after a fresh install of Windows 11. My guess is that Windows could detect that all my other hardware was exactly the same, CPU, GPU, RAM, & PCI WiFi. I had secure boot disabled because of TPM 2.0 on my original setup too (not sure if that made a difference).

Had to do this a few weeks ago and the day after it wasn't activated anymore then found out the activation servers were down that day for some reason but thankfully the next day it reactivated smoothly.

Bro LMAO they make you call their robot so that the robot can give you a fucking link back, I'm dead

this is what i needed... thx U jay

I was kinda impressed how easy was to transfer a Windows NVMe from a 9600K system and put it on a 7700X, win11 took it like everyday and just recognized the new stuff and installed drivers, still working great after 6 months, just had to do the troubleshooting for the activation and update the hardware attached to my MS account

I can confirm this works. Upgraded to a 7900 from a 8700K just copying the install to a new drive. One thing I did notice... When you look at your windows devices in the app, it will show you how many computers use that key. You can remove them though (it must remove the TPM data), and you can continue on as happy as Larry. Still doesn't beat a fresh install... which I should really do at some point! All data is backed up and ready to go though. Just another wee nugget of info.

I recently changed motherboard and my Windows 11 install was pretty messed up even after installing drivers for new hardware. Some GIFs didn't load on Facebook and Steam games refused to download. I'm sure there were other issues going on. All it took was noticing those two issues to realize my Windows install was now broken simply from changing motherboard. I had to format my SSDs and reinstall Windows. I recently dealt with the issue of Windows not being activated, but all I had to do was click troubleshoot, select my new device and Windows very quickly activated. I do have a Microsoft account. It helps to have one of those.

Thanks for the video! I've been doing this since Windows Vista / Windows 7 and it always worked fine but everyone always told me: "No you shouldn't, the OS will run worse after this!" but nobody ever could back that up.

You can also use command prompt to uninstall windows key then when you build and boot the new pc you can just activate the key like you would the first time around

For anyone wondering you can also find the inf files and inject them directly into the windows installation ahead of time as well. Also make sure you disable Bitlocker and Data Encryption before changing boards as Bitlocker will trip due to new secure boot keys being generated when taking an old drive and putting it into a new board.

Great video! Now all I need is a time machine

I have done that myself drive from old to new board and no problems, Only time that need to consider a clean install of the OS when your drive needs to be replaced lol

Please provide details on the performance upscale with the RGB toggled on!

I'm actually carrying on a windows 7 license till nowadays, changed pc many times, last one was few months ago when I just changed my laptop for a custom desktop and just activated my W11 with same key. It activated my new desktop pc with win 11 pro and actually nothing happened to my laptop, even though it was saying it would lose the activated status

will this work on win10 pro?

I literally just put my OS drive in my new build and turned it on and it worked 😅😅

could you use standoffs to move the fans back and have room for the video card?

Answer is yes but depends on the SATA Mode in bios if you had raid setup then nope but if its the other one then it should work, but not recommended due to drivers may be cause problems like blue screens even if you remove old drivers and install the new ones

3d print some kind of fan mount extender to account for the jumbo graphics cards.

Jay is in Big RGBs back pocket! 😉

Interesting, however it would have been helpful with mention of what are the exceptions to the rule mentioned in the title. Or why would this not work for some of us. Still, could come in handy so thanks for the info.

MS had me type in elevated CMD slmgr -ipk "existing serial number" Worked like a charm

I didn't even have to call in. When I switched to AM5 last year, I just slotted in my old drive, logged in as myself, installed all my new drivers with a USB, and I was good to go.

I remember back in the PATA days we used a pci Promise controller card for this purpose. You'd install the Promise card in the current system and let the OS install drivers for the card. Then you'd change motherboards and connect your hard drive to the Promise card in the new system. At that point it would boot up because it recognized the Promise card. Then the OS could find drivers for the IDE controller on the new motherboard. Then you'd power off, move the drive over to the motherboard controller, remove the Promise card from the system, and power back on. Definitely easier now.

This channel has JUMPED THE SHARK!

Jay, blur is not destructive. Put black\white bars over sensitive info. Blur can be restored to original image, it's an algorithm that can be reversed

Activating by phone often works if a purchased key doesn’t work via regular activation too.

Yoooo, thank you!

I can’t believe Jay doesn’t have any seasoning power supplies! I think they are the best in the industry; even Corsair uses them for some of their power supplies.

my digital window license tie with my Microsoft account outlook worth 3$ only, using for almost 7years from am4 w/ window 10pro to am5 w/ window 11pro. easy to transfer and activate.

Great video. I've never done a Windows transfer before. I really impressed Microsoft added a calling feature to do this. I'm not sure if you have this video or not. But what about moving your os from a m.2 gen 3 to gen 4 for the faster speeds. Is that tougher?

I set mine up to dual boot into the old drive with win10 or to the new M.2 drive that I copied the same windows 10 to and then did the free update to 11 which I then reset as a fresh install. Now I have two different activated versions of windows (10,11) on the same machine although technically they are the same copy of windows (originally win7).

simplest option is to link the activation key to your mircosoft account. did it years ago. yes you have to buy an official key. but havent need to buy our source another code from somewhere since. just. built like 3 pc's since i did it works fine everytime.

This video reminded me of the time that my dad tried to upgrade to windows 10 and thought that the UPC retail code on the box was the windows key and couldn't activate his PC until I went to visit.

i use the mass gravel method and hope when i upgrade i can do it again

The Arctic Liquid Freezer III has direct MB air flow.

Singularity's Absolute case looks very interesting to me, if you get sent one. I'd personally enjoy your opinion on it.

That Asus Aura thing - my Asrock board's bios has a thing to reset the rgb back to factory defaults and that includes the ram when it decides it wants a rave party or when the rgb freezes thanks to Synapse since it's a Tachi Razor Edition.

"Its not Asus" *proceeds to install an Asus graphics card*

usually, there is a script/utility on windows (if anyone cares/wants to know which, let me know, I can edit this) that is INTENDED to be used before swapping system hardware, it will "uninstall" the Win key, exactly for that per-1-device registered win key, and then once you move over to different hardware, you just re-activate Win again with the previously used key. Also, the "flashed Win key to MoBo" is usually a laptop thing rather than a Desktop-style PC thing.

Or you can just forgo the ability to change Windows themes and still use Windows indefinitely. There will most likely be a watermark at the bottom right reminding you to reactivate, but other than that it functions perfectly fine. Or buy a retail copy license and that allows unlimited installs on one machine at a time. Avoid the OEM copies, which lock the activation code to the motherboard hardware ID that the OS was first installed on.

hi thanks just the video i wanted !! jayz always on the top. just little but think you quickly answerd .... does this work if i go from intel to AMD ?

That is definitely easier than back in the day!

Definitely looks there will be a v1.1 or more. With that big GPU in there not only does it overhang the chassis where the 140 mm fans would be, it also looks to be blocking 2 or 3 power connectors under the card.