Move win 7

[Generic Eric]

I want to move my TB HDD that has win7 on it as a second drive to a pc while installing the same key on its SSD.


Am I  likely to encounter problems?

[JDFan]

Shouldn't have any problems but would suggest removing all HDDs and then installing win7 on the SSD with it as the only drive installed (if there are more than 1 drive windows has a habit of installing a 100MB hidden boot partition onto the second drive - which can then cause problems if the second drive is ever removed and also slow down the boot process as it reads files from the slower HDD hidden partition rather than the SSD)

Once you get that installed and activated install the HDD - copy any files you need from the HDD to a backup source and reformat the windows partition (this will remove any leftover traces of the windows install (not always needed as you could just remove the windows install but doing a reformat on the HDD also cleans out any orphaned or hidden files so doesn't hurt))

By doing it this way you also have the HDD to put back in if there are any problems getting the SSD install working or activated.

Alternatively many SSDs come with a software program to migrate the windows install from the HDD to the SSD - ( But I prefer to reinstall from scratch and reformat the old HDD even though it takes more time since windows seems to need a fresh install from time to time anyway to remove clutter.) -- If you prefer this method to save time if your current install is complex or setup the way you like, there is a good article that describes the process on Lifehacker ( http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to-migrate-to-a-solid-state-drive-without-reinstalling-windows )

[Generic Eric]

Thanks.  It's been  awhile since I've done this.

[EMDB]

I used Paragorn Migrate OS to SSD (http://www.paragon-software.com/technologies/components/migrate-OS-to-SSD/) successfully a couple of times...

[Generic Eric]

So I installed win7 on my SSD.  Once I connected the old drives, it still finds the old windows install. 

I don't feel like going through that old TB drive now to find what I need to save, but I feel like if I deleted windows, I would be missing something cool from my desktop.