How to save old drive data and programs to new pc system and drive

i am geeting ready to put together a new system and i am wondering how i can get all my files and programs from my old wdc100fals to the new system with wd1000dhtz. i also have an external wd my book that i want to be used on the new system.  is it as simple as making a recovery image or what. i’m using windows 8 pro. thanks for any replies 

Windows itself will not function correctly if moved to different hardware than what it was installed on. There are two major factors involved.

The first of these are the many drivers Windows uses to address various hardware devices. These start with the chipset drivers for the motherboard itself. It is critical that Windows be allowed to set itself up to match the hardware it is to run on.

The second factor is that many programs will not work correctly under Windows if they are simply copied to another installation. This is largely because important settings are stored in the Windows Registry. In addition, many programs put parts of themselves in locations other than the program folder itself. One such location is \Program Files\Common Files, but there are others.

To build a system which runs really well, you need to do a clean install of Windows, install the system drivers, and get all the latest Windows Updates on board. Then applications need to be installed so that they can put their various components where required, and get their settings in the Registry.

There are ways to carry over much of a previous Windows installation, though not all programs will successfully transfer. In particular, applications with strong license validation are likely to balk. If you want to look into this approach, check out Laplink PC Mover.

What type of CPU in the old system and new one?

Like Kieren said there can be significant problems trying to move a system disk between computers, but it can be done. For one, Paragon make some software that will detect this issue and change the hardware abstraction layer settings, it works well (and is priced accordingly). 

SInce you’re running Windows 8 you could just try imaging your old disk to your new one, you sometimes get away with it with Windows 7 and above (virtually never worked with Win XP). In all liklihood you’re just going to need to reinstall everything though, at least it will probably be quicker just to reinstall everything.