Building my own pc

HonkyWam

Tickle me Elmo!
Dec 8, 2011
289
4
Well, I'm building my own pc and I'm wondering if I can use my hard drive on the computer I have now so I dont have to pay an extra for hardrive and windows 7, I'm wondering if it will work or there's some sort of method for it.
 

Macemore

Circumcised pineapples
Aug 26, 2011
1,681
819
You'd need to reinstall windows, which wouldnt be hard, you could download a windows ISO from a torrent site ( ) and use the licence printed on your prebuilt computer's case. Other than that you'd have to make sure the hard drive uses the same connection type. Since it's Windows 7 I can assume it uses SATA so you should be good.
If you don't reinstall I don't think it will work.

TL;DR:
Download a windows ISO from and use the licence on the case of your already built computer to reinstall windows on the hard drive.
 

HonkyWam

Tickle me Elmo!
Dec 8, 2011
289
4
You'd need to reinstall windows, which wouldnt be hard, you could download a windows ISO from a torrent site ( ) and use the licence printed on your prebuilt computer's case. Other than that you'd have to make sure the hard drive uses the same connection type. Since it's Windows 7 I can assume it uses SATA so you should be good.
If you don't reinstall I don't think it will work.

TL;DR:
Download a windows ISO from and use the licence on the case of your already built computer to reinstall windows on the hard drive.
Do I need to reinstall windows because I don't really have a burner on my dvd thing or you need to so everything can work?
Edit**
It possible to boot it up with a USB?
 

Macemore

Circumcised pineapples
Aug 26, 2011
1,681
819
Do I need to reinstall windows because I don't really have a burner on my dvd thing or you need to so everything can work?
You can use a USB just make sure there it's atleast 4gb. Download a Windows 7 image (also called an ISO) and use Universal USB Installer.
And yes you do, Windows was installed and configured to run on the computer it was installed on, if you remove it and put it on another computer, it will try and run it as it was before, and that won't go well.
 

HonkyWam

Tickle me Elmo!
Dec 8, 2011
289
4
You can use a USB just make sure there it's atleast 4gb. Download a Windows 7 image (also called an ISO) and use Universal USB Installer.
And yes you do, Windows was installed and configured to run on the computer it was installed on, if you remove it and put it on another computer, it will try and run it as it was before, and that won't go well.
What so I just plug it in with my old harddrive in there and it will just automatically boot up like if it's a cd or something?
 

Macemore

Circumcised pineapples
Aug 26, 2011
1,681
819
What so I just plug it in with my old harddrive in there and it will just automatically boot up like if it's a cd or something?
No.
Download Universal USB installer, download a Windows 7 ISO from here look on the computer case and locate the Windows 7 OEM Licence given with the computer, should look like this: , at the top it should say something like "Windows 7 pro OEM" or "Windows 7 home premium OEM", search this in kat.ph (without the OEM part). Download. Use Universal USB installer to put the ISO onto the USB.

Once that's done, plug the old hard drive into the new system, plug the USB into the new system, and boot into the usb (Google this, its really easy). You should see a windows 7 installation screen, go through all the steps, when asked for a licence, use the licence key on the old system's case. Once installation is done, you're done!
 

HonkyWam

Tickle me Elmo!
Dec 8, 2011
289
4
No.
Download Universal USB installer, download a Windows 7 ISO from here look on the computer case and locate the Windows 7 OEM Licence given with the computer, should look like this: , at the top it should say something like "Windows 7 pro OEM" or "Windows 7 home premium OEM", search this in kat.ph (without the OEM part). Download. Use Universal USB installer to put the ISO onto the USB.

Once that's done, plug the old hard drive into the new system, plug the USB into the new system, and boot into the usb (Google this, its really easy). You should see a windows 7 installation screen, go through all the steps, when asked for a licence, use the licence key on the old system's case. Once installation is done, you're done!
On my case I don't have anything because my mom took this computer to some guy and he installed windows 7 on it. I'm not sure can you help me find it?
 

Ethereal

Neurotic Male
May 18, 2013
494
330
You'd need to reinstall windows, which wouldnt be hard, you could download a windows ISO from a torrent site ( ) and use the licence printed on your prebuilt computer's case. Other than that you'd have to make sure the hard drive uses the same connection type. Since it's Windows 7 I can assume it uses SATA so you should be good.
If you don't reinstall I don't think it will work.

TL;DR:
Download a windows ISO from and use the licence on the case of your already built computer to reinstall windows on the hard drive.

You're very correct Windows 7 only works on the specific Motherboard that it was originally installed upon.

On my case I don't have anything because my mom took this computer to some guy and he installed windows 7 on it. I'm not sure can you help me find it?

Small tutorial:

I'd just keep the old Windows 7 on the Disk, but download and then create a Secondary Partition and extract the ISO into that partition and then boot into it- all you'd have to do is merge/delete the partition during the installation of the fresh Windows 7. (I found being able to do this very useful when I didn't have a USB Stick or an Optical Drive)


Lastly, instead of getting a product key just use this remove .

Hope I helped. ;)
 

Macemore

Circumcised pineapples
Aug 26, 2011
1,681
819
You're very correct Windows 7 only works on the specific Motherboard that it was originally installed upon.



Small tutorial:

I'd just keep the old Windows 7 on the Disk, but download and then create a Secondary Partition and extract the ISO into that partition and then boot into it- all you'd have to do is merge/delete the partition during the installation of the fresh Windows 7. (I found being able to do this very useful when I didn't have a USB Stick or an Optical Drive)


Lastly, instead of getting a product key just use this remove .

Hope I helped. ;)
I didn't want to tell him to pirate, thanks for the tutorial but I think some one's going to have to do a bit more indepth with this I don't know if he knows what a partition is.

No offense.
or some offense
 

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