Will I be able to install my upgrade to a different drive?

Question

I will be upgrading my processor, and adding a larger M.2 drive to my computer. I need to upgrade the processor to get the the Window 11 upgrade. I want to know if the update will allow me to designate the new drive to install it on?

Answer 1

Unfortunately this is not an option. An upgrade uses the existing OS version on the current OS drive.

If you need to use a different disk/drive, you'd need to reinstall the OS

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hth

Marcin

Answer 2

Your question about moving drives has already been answered so I'll skip that. The thing I'm going to point out is whether your upgrade is going to work at all anyway.

You didn't specify what processor you're moving from and to but motherboards are tied to the chipset of the processor. In general if you update your processor you're probably moving from one chipset to another which means your existing motherboard won't work. In general motherboard/CPU combos go together. Depending on how old the existing motherboard is determines whether you're moving from a BIOS to UEFI configuration. This could make or break the boot process for Windows.

If you update the motherboard and the CPU then as far as Windows is concerned its a new machine. Simply moving the drive over, even without the upgrade, isn't going to magically have Windows working. At a minimum Windows will detect the hardware change, assume this is a new computer and make you reactivate it again.

However Windows finds the "OSes" at boot time based upon the hardware path and that is tied to the controller and port it is attached to. This is determined by which SATA port you plug your drive into or what M.2 slot you put your drive in. If you don't line up the new motherboard's path with the old one (good luck with that by the way as it isn't obvious) then Windows is going to fail to boot saying it cannot find the boot device. At this point you'll need to run the Windows startup repair tool to repair the OS which will allow it to find the "new" path for the existing Windows OS.

My point is that if you're swapping out the motherboard/CPU then you're going to probably have to fix Windows anyway. If you want to move Windows to a different drive and you're already going to all this work it would probably be easier to just reinstall Windows from scratch on the drive you want to put it on anyway. It would save a lot of hassle in the long run. Of course you'd need to back up your data and whatnot. But if you're moving it to a new drive then you can use your new drive on the new machine and install Windows and then plug in your old drive to the same computer and copy over the data you want.

What I don't know is whether you can skip the intermediate install of Win10. If you have a Win11 upgrade disk then you might just be able to install Win11 directly. Years ago if you did this then it would say "hey this is an upgrade" and require that you provide the old product key/install media to proof you had it. Then it would move forward. I don't know if the Win11 upgrade can do this. Of course if you're just using the free upgrade from MS then most likely you'll need Win10 installed first anyway.

Answer 3

Hello,

Your ability to install Windows 11 on a new drive depends on which installation method you choose. Here are a couple of approaches:

1. In‑Place Upgrade (Using Windows Update/Installation Assistant):

 • If you run the upgrade from your current installation (via Windows Update or the Installation Assistant), the process will update the Windows system partition on your existing boot drive (often the C: drive). In this case, the upgrade doesn’t give you an option to choose a different drive.

2. Clean Installation (Custom Install):

 • If you prefer to have your operating system run off the new M.2 drive, you’ll need to do a clean installation of Windows 11. This means creating a bootable USB drive with Windows 11 installation media. During setup, you can choose the new drive as the target installation drive.

 • Before doing a clean install, back up your data and ensure you have the necessary drivers and software reinstall plans.

 • You might also consider cloning your existing installation to the new drive using migration tools, but cloning can be more complex if the upgrade itself is part of your plan.

In summary, the typical upgrade process (in‑place upgrade) doesn’t let you designate another drive—if you want Windows 11 on your new M.2 drive, you’ll need to perform a clean installation or clone your current OS installation to that drive so that it becomes your primary boot device. Remember to check that your processor, motherboard, and other hardware meet Windows 11’s requirements once you perform the upgrade.

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