hdd works but wont boot

Arick_

Commendable
Feb 6, 2017
5
0
1,510
I pulled my 500gb wd blue hdd out of a 1y/o pc with win10 because i think the mobo fried. I put it in both a loptop and desktop of mine and it refuses to boot for both, but if I hook it up to an already running win10 pc it can read and right just fine. i want to use the pre installed win10 on this hdd for a pc, any advice?
 
Solution
As others have stated, you cant just take windows from one computer and move it to another

The drive not booting could be because 1 of 2 reasons
1) The hardware difference is too big, the OS installed on that drive was setup for the hardware of that computer, if the hardware is too different then it will either boot but be unstable or not boot at all
2) The drive works in the other Win10 pc because that one is set to GPT and UEFI bios like the dead computer was, if the other PCs you tried it in are set to mbr or legacy bios then this result in not booting.

Either way you still cant just move the hard drive.
Now Microsoft will allow to move windows to a different motherboard IF you already had that copy linked to a microosft...

Arick_

Commendable
Feb 6, 2017
5
0
1,510


is there a way to check?
 

Arick_

Commendable
Feb 6, 2017
5
0
1,510


yes, it was a cheap pre build from best buy
 

genthug

Commendable
Mar 20, 2016
59
0
1,610
Many if not all pre-builts use OEM versions of Windows. I'm not 100% if it'll show OEM on this--but if you put the HDD back into the old machine and type "information" in your search bar it should bring up your system info. The first thing listed should be the version of Windows, but I'm not 100% sure if that will show if it's an OEM copy or not.
 
As others have stated, you cant just take windows from one computer and move it to another

The drive not booting could be because 1 of 2 reasons
1) The hardware difference is too big, the OS installed on that drive was setup for the hardware of that computer, if the hardware is too different then it will either boot but be unstable or not boot at all
2) The drive works in the other Win10 pc because that one is set to GPT and UEFI bios like the dead computer was, if the other PCs you tried it in are set to mbr or legacy bios then this result in not booting.

Either way you still cant just move the hard drive.
Now Microsoft will allow to move windows to a different motherboard IF you already had that copy linked to a microosft outlook/live/hotmail account
 
Solution