Help me convince my new machine it is my old machine?

Hello patron saints of computing!

I've lurked around here for a long time (and learned a lot of useful things), but I finally feel compelled to ask for help, as I am upgrading my PC for the first time (previous machines, um, died of cooling problems; this one still runs fabulously) and am confused as to how to salvage my data/programs/OS.

Years ago when I was a poor student, I bought a Cyberpower machine (before reading all the negative reviews. I wouldn't do it again, but mine ran great!) which came with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit pre-installed, so I have a license number but no disk.

The machine looked like this:
Xion Predator AXP970 Gaming Case
Intel Core i5 760(2.80GHz) (quad core)
4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333
1TB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 7200RPM HDD
450W power supply of a brand I'd never heard of (since replaced with a Corsair CX750; this is actually too much output; it's down in the inefficient part of the bell curve, but my PSU had died, and this was at the time my only machine, so I was limited to what was in stock at the local Fry's because I needed my machine to work again. And I was consumed by brandlust and a dramatic rebate. But mostly the needing my computer to work immediately).
ATI Radeon HD 5450 1GB PCI-Express Graphics Card (since replaced with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti)
24X DVD±R/±RW Dual Layer Drive (no burner for some reason. I could buy one, I guess, if it would make anything easier)
All in a very strange motherboard that only has 2 RAM slots (and no details on the receipt, other than the fact that it has an Intel H55 chipset).

As you can see, it's time to upgrade the processor! Which also means upgrading the motherboard and RAM. (Buying an SSD will have to wait; all my money is going into overhauling the rest of the computer.)

I'm thinking of buying:
Intel Core i7-5930K Haswell-E 6-Core 3.5GHz LGA 2011-v3 140W (which seems to be about as much processor as I can afford)
ASUS X99-A motherboard
CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 16GB (4 x 4GB) 288-Pin DDR4

You can critique the build if you like, I haven't bought anything yet, but my question is actually: Can I use the Windows 7 license from my current machine in the machine it's going to be turned into? (ie. uninstall Windows and then reinstall it? Do I even need to uninstall and then reinstall it?) How? This isn't an OEM license like you get from Dell, is it? Where the license is tied to the motherboard? What do you recommend for bringing my programs over to the new build? They're all digital licenses (except the Microsoft Office Suite, which has actual disks I can use) so there isn't any physical media, though there aren't very many of them. Music/pictures/documents have an obvious solution. I worry a little about game save data, but Steam is pretty good about putting that kind of thing in the cloud where it can just be re-downloaded.

What say the lovely men and women of the Overclockers community?

I first say welcome!

I then ask, why a 5930K? Are there things you do that require 12 threads? If so, grab it. If you want it just because, that is fine too, though your wallet has a right to complain as there are other CPUs avialable for less (5820K or Z97 platform and 4790K). With that lowering of specs, you can get your SSD out of the gate.

As far as your questions...

1. You may be able to... depends on the license. Usually it will error and you cal cal MS to update. Same thing with a reinstall off the same media
2. Bringing programs over to the new build, reinstall them is about your only choice (unless you image the OS and copy the entire image over).

I considered just imaging the whole machine and copying the image over. Is there any reason I wouldn't want to do that?

It's not so much that I need 12 threads tomorrow; it's more that if I'm going to replace nearly every part of my computer I want to buy more capacity than I will possibly need for a long time. I'd rather spend more in advance than have a shorter upgrade cycle. I figure upgrading more often would cost me more in the long run? This little machine lasted 4 years before the current state of my game library made it start to mumble and complain. I will definitely look at your alternate CPU suggestions, though; tyvm!

Because you can run into driver issues... that said, I do it...

A Z97/4790K will last your 4 years.

Sometimes you can boot into Windows on a new motherboard using the system disk from the old machine if the chipsets are not too dissimilar and then install whatever drivers are needed to complete the changeover.

When I swap boards, they are usually incremental jumps or to the same chipset. With that I have been mostly lucky in that just booting to it works. It needs to figure things out for a couple of minutes and its not 'clean', but it works, basically. I say basically because you will need that driver disk from the motherboard or, perferably, a USB stick with the LATEST drivers already on it (chipset/Intel ME/NIC/USB, etc).

Give it a go. It should work out pretty well. MS has a method of getting you a new key if you can get on the internet or via a toll free telephone call.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/get-windows-product-key#get-windows-product-key=windows-7

I'd definitely create an image first and foremost. Once that is complete, then just uninstall as many of your current drivers as you can and shut down the computer. Install the new components and see if she'll boot to windows. Chances are if you're going from Intel chipset to Intel chipset it will get you to the desktop. If that happens, follow ED's suggestion and re-install all the drivers anew.

Earthdog may have talked me into the 5820K, comparing its specs and price to the 5930K, but that's still a pretty dramatic change between the H55 to X99 chipset, no?

Edit: Thank you for the procedural advice Lvcoyote! Can I ask a really noob question of which drivers I can safely uninstall? I've never done this before.

It is a dramatic change, but I'm pretty sure Intel chipset drivers are all inclusive now days. In otherwords, during install the driver package identifies what chipset you have and installs appropriately. Might be a good idea to update to the latest chipset drivers before installing the new parts, but you still want to install them once more once all the new parts are installed and you get to the desktop.

Sysprep will delete all the drivers for you. Can't say I've done that or deleted any drivers before I make this change, but that would be a lot cleaner, and likely preferred over mybmethod.

So...I have an OS cd, and it asks me which drive I want to install it to. It doesn't see the hdd, but that's a different problem; it sees the ssd, which is where I want the OS anyway. But it says it cannot install to that drive because it is not bootable. I've seen it suggested that it's because the Samsung Evo drives are sold in the wrong format and need to be formatted, so I tried this suggestion:

You can set the drive to MBR from the Windows installation CD. Boot up your pc with your windows installation disc and go to Repair my computer, from there get to the list of options that can help repair an existing install of windows. Continue onto the Command Line Prompt. Once on the command prompt ex: X:\ or whatever it shows for your drive, type diskpart. Once in diskpart type list disk. From there it will list yours drives, type: select disk <number> (list disk will show Disk 0, Disk 1, etc.. select yours) select disk 0, hit enter. Type list disk to make sure your drive is selected, it will have a * next to it. Now you want to type clean (note: this will delete all files and partitions on your drive) after that type convert mbr then exit after its done. And that's it. You have now converted your GPT drive to MBR and will be able to install Windows 7 or whatever version you like.

But I can't get to the command prompt. In Repair My Computer, it says select your OS, but my list is blank. It says if your list is blank, click load drivers and insert the driver CD for the ssd (it still doesn't see my hdd, btw), and when I do that it tells me to select a file, and every file on the disk (starting with the only one that is the file type it suggests) tells me "does not contain system information" and prompts me to select a different file.

Any ideas what else I should try?

throw in your old hdd with the os on it and reformat the ssd.

Alright, I tried to do that but it doesn't see my old hard drive at all.

You'll have to get the drivers for that.

Intel should have them if you built Intel anyway. You'l have to search the download center for your chipset.
Then throw them on to a USB and assuming Windows setup can see your USB, you can load the drivers from that and the hard drive should show up.



But, the more I read your posts it seems that the BIOS itself doesn't see the hard drive?
If so that might be bad news - dying/dead hard drive

What motherboard is this new one?

Asus x99-A. The BIOS itself doesn't see the old hdd, which worked fine before I rebuilt the computer, or the new hdd, only the ssd that it can't install to.

What operating system are you trying to install?

Windows 7

x64?
There are two SATA ports north of the main block of SATA ports. Plug your SSD into the top one and the rom drive in the lower one. One you get to the point of installing, you might have to delete the existing partition and then create the new one. This will erase the drive so make sure you have backed everything up prior to doing this.