I am upgrading my PC, but I'm sticking to my old HDD and gfx card. I would like to avoid reinstalling Win 8. Is this possible? Or, at least, is it possible to use Windows 8's refresh pc option?
UPDATE It worked like a charm. Windows acted as if it was the first boot and displayed the "Getting devices ready % " progress bar. I am not sure if this proves you can do it in every scenario, but my new gear is relatively modern (some gigabyte board with two PCIe 3.0 slots and USB 3.0 support + i5), so I guess we can agree the reinstall is unnecessary in most cases.
Answer
You might be able to get away without re-installing.
Your current installation will have drivers for the current motherboard. The new motherboard will require new drivers.
If Windows can cope with this difference then it will boot but the first thing it will do is ask you to install the new drivers from the motherboard installation CD. However, it might fail to boot. In which case you'll have to re-install Windows.
Make sure to backup your data before doing the upgrade. Then try it and if it works you'll have saved yourself a lot of time.
No comments:
Post a Comment