Just wipe it and use it in external enclosure via usb, 1tb is almost nothing though for external drive. You get a new windows with new pc anyway.

My current PC I had a windows 10 key which was upgraded to 11.

I have 3 of them and I also went from 10 to 11 I had a bit of problem with the main drive (windows drive) which has to be formatted a certain way to upload win 11 on it, but the others were just added to it and worked right away with all their content

Originally posted by Hoppled:

So I’m building a new PC and want to use the current m.2 1TB NVMe chip I have currently on my PC.

The reason I’m hesitant is because I know there can be all sorts of compatibility issues is the drive isn’t wiped properly. There’s also the question of windows. My current PC I had a windows 10 key which was upgraded to 11.

Anyways, how should I go about just wiping the drive? Should I keep windows installed on it before transferring to the new mobo or should literally everything be gone. I’m gonna use DDU to wipe the drivers and maybe chipset too, but I just want to wipe everything possible as if it’s brand new.

Let me know, thanks

Hello again


Format the drive when you are ready to wipe it. First get all your drivers for the new pc on a usb stick. Get another usb stick and download the iso making tool called rufus and make a windows 11 iso with the latest iso. You get this from the microsoft site it should be 2h 11 i think?


Then put the old 1tb drive into new pc, Insert the rufus iso usb pen and set the boot priorty to first boot from usb and second boot from hard drive/ssd.

Once windows install is complete swap the boot priority to first the ssd with windows 11 and second the usb.

A few times I have just put the system disk from an old PC into a new PC without doing anything else - or cloned the old drive to the new one - essentially the same thing) - the new PC boots as normal then fiddles around adjusting itself to the new hardware and from then on continues as if nothing happened. Windows is very flexible I find. You might have to get drivers for a new GPU and the motherboard to finish it off nicely, but it will work in the meantime.

I have done this with my own PCs, PCs at the organisation I support as a volunteer, and a friend or 2.

But take an image of the old disk just to be on the safe side.

Just put the old drive into new motherboard and boot from it, if it boots it boots.
If not, try to boot into safe mode.

But with Win10/11 this is usually doesn't have such issues like with Win7/8 or older.
9/10 times it will boot just fine.

Once into OS on the new motherboard, wipe out all the old driver installs completely, then reboot as needed and download all latest drivers and install them, along with GPU drivers.

Before you do anything, while on a working PC, go download the latest non-Beta BIOS update for new motherboard, extract it to a USB flash drive (or even a current one you made for Win10/11) and then go update the BIOS first.

IF you dont have bitlocker on you can just move the drive over and windows will install base drivers on a long first boot (if the OS is on it)....if its a storage drive you dont have to do anything just plug and play.....

if you have bitlocker on you will have to wipe the drive

Make sure using the M.2 slot doesn't disable one of the PCI slots you might want to use. Other than that, it shouldn't be necessary to wipe the old chipset drivers, but you can do it after the fact if problems crop up.

Windows complaining about reactivation is a mountain of ♥♥♥♥ I'd rather not get into discussing.

Originally posted by Electric Cupcake:

Windows complaining about reactivation is a mountain of ♥♥♥♥ I'd rather not get into discussing.

That can easily be solved if this is an issue by calling their support # and explain that you had no choice but to replace your Motherboard.

There is a command named Sysprep, you can run that as GENERALIZE and have the Shutdown on. This removes all specific drivers installed in the OS in preparation to move to another PC. No software should be affected, but always do your backups. After shutdown, do not reboot until drive is in the new system. This is for the boot drive only, all other non-booting drives will work by just transferring them to the new system.

Originally posted by Iron Knights:

There is a command named Sysprep, you can run that as GENERALIZE and have the Shutdown on. This removes all specific drivers installed in the OS in preparation to move to another PC. No software should be affected, but always do your backups. After shutdown, do not reboot until drive is in the new system. This is for the boot drive only, all other non-booting drives will work by just transferring them to the new system.

I thought I should download AMD drivers and chipset, so I left generalize unchecked. I didn't pack it up or anything yet, but maybe I should only leave it up to the owner. No windows key either.

Well yes of course, and you'll need more then just those 2 drivers if you changed Motherboards.

You want AMD Chipset Drivers from AMD.com

Along with your GPU Driver, whether that be from Intel / AMD / NVIDIA .com official websites.

Along with everything else for the new Motherboard; Audio, LAN, WIFI, BT; etc. There might also be a couple other drives it needs as well. All are available on the Motherboard model number / name official website. Simple google the full Motherboard Brand + Model to find that correct support page.

If the Board has a Revision; which is more common with Gigabyte; then you also need to double check that you are downloading BIOS/Drivers for the correct revision of said model Motherboard as well because sometimes they change some onboard components from revision to revision.

Downloads are not affected, stack all the new drivers in their own folder, back it up and forget it.
Sysprep only affects INSTALLED drivers.

Originally posted by Iron Knights:

Downloads are not affected, stack all the new drivers in their own folder, back it up and forget it.
Sysprep only affects INSTALLED drivers.

I'm confused. Sysprep only affects installed drivers with Generalize checked or unchecked or both? Also, I'd rather just ignore the whole driver thing at that point since if I put it in the folder, whoever buys the PC will know how to install a driver in the first place if they know to click and download from a premade folder.

With Generalize Checked of course, I forgot to type that in, I think you said you're moving the drive into another machine. This NEEDS to be done.

If you're wiping the drive however, you don't need sysprep, just delete partitions, format with wipe (0s & 1s), Install New OS and shutdown before First Setup.
You said nothing about selling the machine at all, that got me all confused.