My PC Broke, can I upgrade CPU/Mobo, AND retrieve old files?

[El Matador]

tl;dr at the bottom

Here's the story, I accidentally broke my Z370 motherboard some time ago, also returned the i7 8700 CPU for warranty. I had some files on that PC that I want to retrieve. Now, the safe option would be to buy a Z390 board (Z370s are out of stock everywhere) and something like the i7 9700K to replace them, since they too use the same Coffee Lake chipset, meaning I could probably boot the system and make copies of the files I had saved without an issue.

But, alternatively, I could buy a Z490 and an appropriate CPU, for around the same price too. Or maybe something from AMD, whatever, it'd be an upgrade either way. Point is, this would mean a completely new chipset, which means a necessary system reinstall for everything to work properly. It would be nice to make that upgrade, but can I first retrieve the files I have on the SSD with the system somehow?

tl;dr: If I replace a Z370 board with a Z490 (which has a different chipset) + new CPU, will I still be able to boot the system at least once to copy files onto a USB-stick before a full Windows reinstall?

[emoticorpse]

connect the drive to any pc and you can browse the contents if it's not encrypted

[plat]

If the drives are intact and undamaged, you should be able to not only access the data but resume using them on your new system like you used to.

[El Matador]

plat původně napsal:

If the drives are intact and undamaged, you should be able to not only access the data but resume using them on your new system like you used to.

I dunno about that, on the internet the general consensus is that swapping to a new mobo with a different chipset may cause issues without a system reinstall, especially if the generational gap is big or the swap is from Intel to AMD. Hence my question, should I be worried or just slap the Z490 in place of Z370 and be good?

[Komarimaru]

El Matador původně napsal:

plat původně napsal:

If the drives are intact and undamaged, you should be able to not only access the data but resume using them on your new system like you used to.

I dunno about that, on the internet the general consensus is that swapping to a new mobo with a different chipset may cause issues without a system reinstall, especially if the generational gap is big or the swap is from Intel to AMD. Hence my question, should I be worried or just slap the Z490 in place of Z370 and be good?

One thing that may be possible, but not 100% working. Boot into safemode first. Clean out all your drivers etc. Then attempt a repair on windows instead after installed said new hardware. DDU can remove things fairly well. Then download and install your new drivers etc, see how it does.

[plat]

Maybe you're confusing having to activate Windows when you get a new motherboard. That's a separate issue. But insofar as your pre-existing SSDs or whatever--why shouldn't you be able to use them when you're up and running? They're not "married" to your broken motherboard.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

El Matador původně napsal:

plat původně napsal:

If the drives are intact and undamaged, you should be able to not only access the data but resume using them on your new system like you used to.

I dunno about that, on the internet the general consensus is that swapping to a new mobo with a different chipset may cause issues without a system reinstall, especially if the generational gap is big or the swap is from Intel to AMD. Hence my question, should I be worried or just slap the Z490 in place of Z370 and be good?

This is hardly EVER a problem with Win10. It was back on previous Windows OS' sure. But once Win8.1 and 10 came along, its been very good with this.
I can't tell you how many times I had BIOS option issues on customer laptops. To which I got around it by simply hooking up their drive they wanted a clean OS on, into one of our Desktops, and the Desktop at that time was and AMD 890 Chipset (AM3+) w/ FX 8350; something you'd never see in a Laptop. The Laptops were almost always Intel based Chipsets. I would boot from my Win10 64bit USB, install the whole OS to customers drive, skipping the product key option. Once the OS goes to reboot the first time, I shutdown the Desktop, put the OS Drive in the customers laptop, to which boots fine and continued the rest of the install from that drive itself. Then once at the Win10 Desktop on the customers laptop, go into the activation settings area and watch as it connects to internet and obtains automatically the digital license that goes with that OS, per that Laptops Motherboard.

And even times when a customers Laptop or Desktop had just up and died and it was usually the Motherboard, to which in most scenarios with a Laptop, you usually can't fix. While the motherboard in a Laptop can be replaced, it usually has to come with the CPU and GPU options already installed on them when you buy it. So this kind of fix can often cost nearly as much as a new laptop could. Long story short we'd remove their OS Drive as-is, put it on another machine, works just fine. You might have to re-activate the OS, but that is usually as simple as clicking a button in Win10 within Settings > Updates & Security > Activation. Or at worst, just calling MS, explain the systems motherboard died, but we needed to retain the OS + Files, they'd issue us a reactivation code to enter into the OS to address an online re-activation failure, which usually only happens on OEM Prebuilds, such as Laptops.

The motherboard and re-activation issues aren't much an issue at all on Desktops though, as long as you used either a Retail product key, or OEM System Builder. If your OS came pre-installed by an OEM such as Dell/Alienware, HP, Lenovo... then these might cause a problem on a different motherboard that is nothing close to the original board. However this can often be cleared up with MS over the phone, which I've done many times with them without problems; even dating back many years with OS' such as XP, Vista, 7