I'm planning to upgrade from my aging MSI gaming laptop to a new desktop after my dedicated GPU failed. I'm wondering if I can just take my 256GB Windows SSD, 1TB game SSD, and 1TB 2.5 inch HDD and put them into a new motherboard. Can I expect everything to boot up smoothly with Windows and have all my games and files accessible, apart from having to reinstall the drivers?
5 Answers
Honestly, I would recommend doing a fresh install of Windows to avoid any issues. It just makes things cleaner in the long run.
I swapped my motherboard and CPU recently and my SSD/HDD didn’t cause any problems. Although some folks suggest a clean install of Windows, I didn’t feel it was necessary.
Yes, even if you switch from Intel to AMD, it should work. Just run DDU to clean out old drivers, and you'll be fine. But honestly, starting fresh is often the best way to go.
It's definitely worth a shot! You might get lucky and have it all work out smoothly.
You should be able to boot into Windows just fine. You'll need to remount your other drives in Windows to access your files. For your games, make sure to point Steam and other clients to the correct game locations after transferring.
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