Buying a new PC with Windows 11 and I want to install my old 2TB SSD in it with Windows 10

UnboundPaladin · Jun 30, 2025 at 5:33 PM

Hi so maybe a bit of a dumb question. I'm a PC gamer and I'm looking to upgrade my PC with a new rig. The new PC will have Windows 11 on it. I'm hoping to also install my 2TB SSD into it from my old PC, but it has Windows 10 installed on it. I could do a complete wipe of it and reformat the SSD, but it also has a lot of my game files on there that I would like to keep without much hassle of moving everything out then back in again. Am I able to install my old SSD to the new PC and boot it up normally and then delete my Windows 10 files from it? Or would having an SSD with Windows 10 in a PC with Windows 11 mess something up? Just trying to figure out how best to go about it, I'm still new to figuring out how things work.

:)

SwordofWhedon

It's not a good idea to simply swap in a C drive because it's different hardware, drivers etc. You should have a clean install of 11 for best results

You could install it as a secondary drive

Obsessive Power

I just built this PC. It is running with an Ryzen 7 3700x, RTX 2070 Super, a 500gb NVMe M.2 drive, a 2TB HDD, and 32gb of DDR4 RAM.

That is an odd issue indeed. I built my own PC, an i7 8700, 2TB SSD a 512GB SSD and a 2TB HDD, 16GB DDR4 and an RTX 2080.

Well your specs aren't an issue, that's for sure.

Did you install the latest version of Windows 10, ver 2004 or an earlier version?

Did you install the latest driver from Nvidia?

jbb060

Thanks for getting back to me, Yuri. My PC is a custom-built machine running windows 10, version 22H2 build 19045.2846, with a i5-11600KF, RTX 3070 Ti FE, 16Gb RAM, and the OS installed on a 2Tb 970 Evo Plus. All the game pass games have been installed on the C: drive on this SSD.

JosefLBohorquez

Hi and thanks for reaching Microsoft Xbox gamer's community. My name is Josef.
I'm an Independent Advisor and a Microsoft Xbox user like you.

Hope you're doing great today despite this FAUXBARB

It depends on the PC manufacturer if they decide to install windows 10 or 11 by default.
Usually now all the brand new PCs includes windows 11.

If you want the best option would be return the PC and then look for a one that comes with windows 10 by default

Or the other option is (you may need to double check if the next doesn't void the warranty, if yes. Don't do it) perform a custom installation for your system and install windows 10. But probably you may need to purchase a windows 10 license
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/for...

Ali_AGamer

what hardware have u changed when u got windows 11? I never had this issue tbh, it just randomly started when one day I was turning of the controller. The issue just poped up, I actually thought it was windows 11 22h2 or a update since I never had this issue before, but u are saying u had this issue for a year, which is strange tbh. A year a go I never had this problem but the problem u have is the same as a few others I have come across. Could u list the hardware that u were using on ur old windows 10, and then can you list all the new hardware u have on windows 11 machine. That way I want to see if there is any old hardware u are using on windows 11 machine that u had installed on windows 10. Also how long have u had your new windows 11 pc?

what was ur cpu, gpu, ram, motherboard, psu on the windows 10 computer and then list the cpu, gpu, ram, motherboard, psu for ur new windows 11 pc.

Edit: How are u connecting the controller? are u using a XBOX Wireless adaptor? or Wired/Bluetooth

Thank you

Buying a new PC with Windows 11 and I want to install my old 2TB SSD in it with Windows 10