Hey everyone! I'm in the process of upgrading my PC from a Ryzen 9 5950x to a Ryzen 7 9800x3d, and I have a few questions about transferring my M.2 NVMe drive. Specifically, I want to know if I can just unplug my Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2TB drive with Windows 11 installed and plug it into my new build without uninstalling everything or doing a factory reset, even though I'll be moving from an ASUS ROG STRIX B550-F to an MSI X870-E Pro WiFi motherboard. I'm not very experienced with this, so any advice would be appreciated!
3 Answers
Reusing your existing Windows install can sometimes work fine, but there's always a chance of problems arising due to hardware changes. It's smart to have backups of your data and a Windows installation disk on hand. This way, you’re prepared to wipe and reinstall if needed.
If your SSD has Windows installed, I highly recommend doing a fresh install of Windows when you move to a new build. There are some system configurations that might not play well with the new hardware. Backup your important data, wipe the old drive, and then do a clean install to avoid any potential issues.
You shouldn’t run into any major issues. Even though you're switching motherboard brands, the underlying chipset comes from Asus, since they manufacture the AsMedia chips used in AM5 boards. Just a heads up, I’d recommend looking into the MSI B850 Tomahawk instead of the X870 for better PCIe bandwidth allocation. The X870 configuration allows for one NVMe SSD internally and another externally, which might limit performance a bit. So keep that in mind when setting up your system!
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