Win 10 migration to newer hardware

[tigerwillow1]

This question has nothing to do with IP cameras. I just figure this is a good place to find the answer. The question is: If I clone the disk from an Optiplex 380 system running a 2-core Pentium E5800 CPU, and install it in a newer system, say a 5th or 6th generation core i5, will Win 10 come up and reconfigure itself to the new CPU and chipset?

The reason for the question is that said system has an application installed and configured, and it will take a lot of effort to get it set up from scratch and migrate its data files.

 

[Vini]

Almost certainly yes, and if not, you can install the required drivers within safe mode. The key "thing" to watch for would be Legacy (BIOS)/UEFI mismatch, which is fixable, but a mismatch could result in a non-booting machine making things slightly trickier.

I would guess, based on its age, the 380 is running in Legacy (BIOS) mode. A couple of ways to verify;

- Check the Disk Partioning format, within DiskPart/Disk Management. If MBR (non-GPT), then its definitely not in UEFI mode. (cmd.exe > diskpart > list disk, check for the * in GPT column, if the * is missing, you're in MBR -- most likely)



- Check BIOS Config


If it is running in Legacy mode, once you've got the clone up and running in the new device, I'd perform mbr2gpt; MBR2GPT


Ultimately, as you mention "cloning", you'll always have the original to fall back on.

 

[TonyR]

I would be VERY surprised if Windows 10 did NOT require re-activation because of differing chipset / new motherboard.

If it were me, I'd write down product key first (or find it with a product key finder utility).

 

[Vini]

I would be VERY surprised if Windows 10 did NOT require re-activation because of differing chipset / new motherboard.

If it were me, I'd write down product key first (or find it with a product key finder utility).

It’s a worthwhile exercise but you should be ok.

 

[tigerwillow1]

That you for the info. Makes me more optimistic than I was as I always expect exercises like this to turn into a disaster. Whatever machine I buy will likely have a win 10 license, so I'm "assuming" there won't be an issue with activation. But writing down the original product key is good insurance. I'm looking for a faster machine only because the application is a CPU hog, taking over a minute to launch, and sometimes taking up to 10 seconds from mouse click to response. It's already on an SSD and has sufficient memory.

 

[IAmATeaf]

I would be VERY surprised if Windows 10 did NOT require re-activation because of differing chipset / new motherboard.

If it were me, I'd write down product key first (or find it with a product key finder utility).

Do key finders actually work on Win10, I think I tried a while back and it came back with the same key on multiple devices.

For new devices the key used to activate will be embedded in the BIOS so should hopefully activate without any issues.

 

[J Sigmo]

What would surprise me is if a direct clone of the HDD in the old system would even boot in a new system. A new motherboard will have different addresses for lots of things and need different drivers, etc. I'd be surprised if you'd even get to the point where Windows was starting to load. But I could be wrong!

I've just never seen it work to swap an old boot drive from one PC to another one unless that other PC has the IDENTICAL motherboard, BIOS, accessories, etc.

Keep your old system intact when you try all of this!

What I'd imagine you'll need to do is start from scratch on the new system. But hey, maybe I'm living in the past on all of this, and somehow, motherboards now "find a way".

 

[TonyR]

Do key finders actually work on Win10, I think I tried a while back and it came back with the same key on multiple devices.

Has worked for me in the past, reading key of Win 10 installed on old Win 7 PC. Within a week I'll find out if the key can be read from hive on hard drive from a Dell with bad m/b is good or not; the new M/b will likely trigger activation and I'll use the key the key finder came up with...I'll post back.

For new devices the key used to activate will be embedded in the BIOS so should hopefully activate without any issues.

But the OP in post #1 says "....new CPU and chipset" so it would seem the original BIOS is not in play.

 

[IAmATeaf]

Has worked for me in the past, reading key of Win 10 installed on old Win 7 PC. Within a week I'll find out if the key can be read from hive on hard drive from a Dell with bad m/b is good or not; the new M/b will likely trigger activation and I'll use the key the key finder came up with...I'll post back.


But the OP in post #1 says "....new CPU and chipset" so it would seem the original BIOS is not in play.

No idea about a motherboard but when I purchased my BI PC, a HP 600 G2 when I installed W10 on it it activated without any issues.

 

[fenderman]

No idea about a motherboard but when I purchased my BI PC, a HP 600 G2 when I installed W10 on it it activated without any issues.

This is because MS stores system specific data in its servers that it matches upon activation. Once w10 is installed on a pc, that pc will always activate with no key.

 

[Vini]

What would surprise me is if a direct clone of the HDD in the old system would even boot in a new system. A new motherboard will have different addresses for lots of things and need different drivers, etc. I'd be surprised if you'd even get to the point where Windows was starting to load. But I could be wrong!

I've just never seen it work to swap an old boot drive from one PC to another one unless that other PC has the IDENTICAL motherboard, BIOS, accessories, etc.

Keep your old system intact when you try all of this!

What I'd imagine you'll need to do is start from scratch on the new system. But hey, maybe I'm living in the past on all of this, and somehow, motherboards now "find a way".

Windows 10 is so versatile/robust, you can absolutely butcher a migration, and with some good BCD knowledge you’re back up and running.

I wouldn’t be worried about cloning or license activation, but then again, I’m very much a suck it and see guy.

As you elude to, the guys original kit will remain in tact anyway, so no great hardship.

You’ll be fine


When BI5 hit and there were all the 4>5 upgrade issues, my primary BI Win10 machine went, in the space of about a week, from a Dell 790, to a Lenovo S710 to a VM (running alongside the S710) and then finally to a custom built machine. All by cloning disk to disk, disk to vm and then vm to disk. No boot issues at all. Each time W10 just grabbed the latest drivers a quick reboot and everything was rosey.

 

[TonyR]

The question is: If I clone the disk from an Optiplex 380 system running a 2-core Pentium E5800 CPU, and install it in a newer system, say a 5th or 6th generation core i5, will Win 10 come up and reconfigure itself to the new CPU and chipset?

Looking forward to hearing about the outcome!

 

[tigerwillow1]

Looking forward to hearing about the outcome!

i wish I could report back quickly, but it will likely be a few months. it's not my own personal system and there's a teeny bit of politics involved. Plus, I still have to determine which generation of cpu to go with, trying to optimize cost vs. performance. All of the threads about BI machines have been a big help in providing information.

 

[Vini]

Before you actually upgrade, have you performed all the BI tweaks for CPU gain?

I ran an i7-2600, with 6 cameras at 8mp at around 30% cpu.

I don’t know your setup, but there may be life in the old dog yet!

 

[TonyR]

i wish I could report back quickly, but it will likely be a few months.

I'm not going anywhere....unless the good Lord has other plans.

 

[tigerwillow1]

Before you actually upgrade, have you performed all the BI tweaks for CPU gain?

The system I want to upgrade doesn't run BI. I'm mooching off this forum because that's where the Win 10 expertise and experience is. I'm looking to improve the response of a dog-slow video production and presentation application, which I don't want to be too specific about to avoid unintended slander. For the camera system I'm running a dahua NVR.

 

[Vini]

I'm looking to improve the response of a dog-slow video production and presentation application, which I don't want to be too specific about to avoid unintended slander.

Then pick a CPU, GPU (assuming the app handles gpu acceleration) and RAM that is of higher spec than you currently have, and run off an SSD - ie. the basics.

Once you have the equipment, clone the original disk, clear out the old drivers, install the new and you should be up and running.

You’ll get better performance from W10 under GPT/UEFI, also.

You probably want to be looking at the i5-6600 and up.

You may get a better response in a forum specific to the app with no name. Or Reddit.

 

[J Sigmo]

@tigerwillow1 This really is a good place to come for PC upgrade info.

I upgraded the PC I use for Photoshop using the expertise of the good folks here. I'll say it: Photoshop is a pig.

Fortunately it will use the built-in Quick Synch hardware graphics acceleration features of the newer Intel CPUs, and this, along with an SSD make the refurb PCs I got work well for Blue Iris and for Photoshop. I have more RAM, and a larger SSD in the Photoshop machine than the one I'm using for BI, but other than that, they're identical.

I'll be interested to see what you get and find out how well it improves the speed of your video production setup.

Oh, another benefit of these newer PCs is how much less power they use than my old system. Two of these new systems combined use about 1/5th of what my old beast uses!

 

[tigerwillow1]

Reporting results 3 months later. I cloned the windows 10 boot disk from an optiplex 380 with a core duo E5800 CPU and booted it on a dell t1700 i7-4770 system. My pretend money was bet on it not working. The short version is that win 10 booted, reconfigured itself, and works.

The long version is that it crunched for a few minutes on the first boot, saying something similar to "reconfiguring devices". It came up and ran, but with a bunch of old device drivers. I told it to update the drivers, it crunched for about 15 minutes on that, and now everything seems to be peachy-keen. I didn't by any means do a thorough test, but my rather large video presentation application appears to be happy with it.

Note that I could have run into the boot loader issues noted in a prior post, but didn't. The target machine shipped originally with win 7 and included a win 8 license. I believe this is encoded into the BIOS, and win 10 is happy with it. I'm a serious windows 10 hater, but have to admit I'm pretty impressed with what it did on this. The last time I tried anything like this was with XP, and it failed miserably.

The "dead machine" delay times have been cut almost exactly in half with the faster hardware.

 

[Vini]

Win10 is hugely robust in these situations, as you’ve found, you can seriously abuse it and still usually get it working.

Given the age of your base install, I’d almost certainly guess it’s Legacy/BIOS based.

I’d consider mbr2gpt and the relevant BIOS to UEFI tweaks, especially whilst you have a recent/available clone host. It’s a 2 minute thing assuming all goes well, and will further future proof you.

You basically;

- run mbr2gpt (built in cmd)
- change your BIOS settings to UEFI
- enable Secure Boot

There’s an MS guide for doing this.