Replacing an OEM HDD

F

fortyways

banned
My hard drive (in my sig) is dying. Click of death, etc. It (HDD), my motherboard, and my processor are all from an Acer build. I replaced everything else.

My question is, am I going to have to use a new copy of Windows when I replace it? I know the OEM version won't work with a different motherboard but I'm not sure about the hard drive.

Thanks
 
If you have the CD, no... if you have a backup partition... possibly, if you can't get the installer off to another CD/DVD/Computer/USB device fast enough...
 
I did create a backup CD using Acer's utility thing as soon as I installed Windows. So yeah, I've got the CD.

But it's the OEM version, you know? It's only for that hardware or something; I don't fully understand it. I don't know if the OEM version would work with a retail hard drive. Maybe I should just call Acer and see if they can send me an OEM HDD?
 
What I'm saying is, the CD is an OEM copy of Windows meant only for the OEM system it was originally attached to.

So, if I built a system tomorrow and tried to install it there, it wouldn't work. It would give me an error message that says this copy of Windows can't be used with this machine.

I'm trying to figure out if a new hard drive is enough of a change to cause it to give me such a message.

In other words, I'd like to know which component of a PC an OEM copy of Windows is actually attached to. My guess is either HDD or motherboard.
 
if you were to build a new pc with a new mobo then you would not be able to use the oem cd but because you are only replacing the hdd it will work fine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top