Hi
I want to upgrade my laptop with an ssd, but i don't want to lose my windows installation because I am using the windows 10 upgrade and if I reinstall windows it will downgrade me to my original windows 7
Is there a way to transfer the entire current hdd to a new ssd, for example could I just copy the entire drive onto another computer and then transfer it again to the ssd, would that work or is there another way?
Thanks
You need to "clone" the old HD to the SSD. You won't get a bootable drive just by copying the files. The software should permit cloning the HD to an SSD of less capacity, as long as the contents of the HD will fit on the SSD. People have also done it with the free version of Macrium Reflect.
The SSD probably comes with free software to do that. You may have to invest in a USB adapter to connect the SSD to the laptop. I believe that I've used an Orico external enclosure intended for 2.5" drives. They can be had for less than $10. Example:https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...00M3-_-Product Amazon sells that sort of thing too, but their site has been brought to its knees by Prime day.
Others have given you several ways to migrate your current system to the new SSD, but I'd just like to correct that misconception.
When you took the upgrade to Windows 10 your PC had a digital licence for Windows 10 stored on Microsoft's activation servers, linked to the hardware ID of your PC. The HDD is not part of this ID, so you can replace it with an SSD. You can do a clean install of the same edition of Windows 10 as you had before (Home or Pro). When asked for a key, click 'I don't have one', Windows will activate automatically from your digital licence as soon as it can contact the activation servers.
thank you all for replying, so I have 2 options now, excellent
Bree, that is good news, I don't mind reinstalling if I can have windows 10 back
if I use the recovery on my laptop it will still give me windows 7 right? so do I need to download windows 10?
Depending on the make of laptop, you may not be even able to use the OEM recovery to get Window 7 back. HP's 'recovery' in particular tends to get broken by upgrading to Windows 10.
Yes, you'll need to get the install media from Microsoft, but that's easy (and free).
Create Bootable USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 10
Yes you can clone or create an image and then restore that image to your install SSD Macrium Reflect here is a video that shows you how How to Clone Windows from a Hard Disk to an M.2 SSD (and Keep It Bootable) - YouTube and here is very good tutorial Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect | Windows 10 Tutorials
Hi
it looks like i need to initialize the new ssd before I can clone, should I initialize it in GPT or MBR? I thought it was mbr for a disk smaller than 2tb but I just looked to check and the artice said use gpt for modern disks, for a 500gb ssd which one should I use?
Thanks
You would use the same partitioning type as the old drive.
General rule of thumb for a system (boot) drive is GPT for a UEFI computer and MBR for a legacy BIOS (or CSM compatibility mode) computer.
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