Install Win10 ISO onto new SSD drive?

Hi All, A few days ago I got a new Win8.1 laptop that I smoothly upgraded to Win10. This laptop now shows as being registered with Microsoft. I just now purchased a 250GB SSD that will arrive in a week or so. I want to install Win10 on this new drive. A friend just gave me a DVD burned with the Win10 ISO. When I get my new drive I'll install it into the laptop. Then I'll boot from the DVD and (hopefully) do a *clean* install of Win10. And (hopefully) Microsoft will recognize the laptop as already officially registered. Will this plan work? Am I missing anything important? Do I need to get all the drivers first? Or will the upgrade process grab all the needed drivers? My friend said when he did this process it got all the needed drivers. I already did a backup System Image of Win10 to an external hard drive, and I made a System Recovery DVD. There's no personal files or documents on the existing Win10 drive. Thanks,

It should activate, but it obviously does not always do:

Microsoft says that the motherboard is the component, which makes one PC "this" PC and not another. According to that criterion, you should be able to exchange hardware parts like the harddisk and Windows 10 should still activate on it.

However, I just answered a guy, who has tried exactly that (changing the HDD) and for him Windows 10 does no longer activate. Instead, the Microsoft hotline gave him the great offer to buy a new license for his Windows 10. Here is the thread:
Solved M$ block my key - Windows 10 Forums
His situation may be special as he has different BIOSes in the PC(?). However, just take note that although Microsoft claims it would be possible to get Windows 10 activated again on the same PC, obviously this is not always the case.

For the drivers: Windows comes with a wide range of drivers and Windows Update alsooffers some. Depending on your make and model it may be that realy all drivers directly are there. However, I would not be sure about that. Having the drivers for your hardware at hand surely is not wrong, just in case something is missing afterwards.

Hello Joergi, Thanks. Is there an easy way to copy all the various device drivers onto a USB stick? I did some google searching on this and haven't found anything yet. You know how to do this? It will be good for me to have the drivers just in case. I'll also continue searching. Thanks,

Go to your computer manufacturers site and download all the drivers onto a USB drive , i was shocked to find all the drivers except 1 were already installed when i clean installed Win 10 .

Amazingly the computer worked great so i just kept them since my computers manufacturer has not updated my system's drivers in years .

m3110w said:

Hi All, A few days ago I got a new Win8.1 laptop that I smoothly upgraded to Win10. This laptop now shows as being registered with Microsoft. I just now purchased a 250GB SSD that will arrive in a week or so. I want to install Win10 on this new drive. A friend just gave me a DVD burned with the Win10 ISO. When I get my new drive I'll install it into the laptop. Then I'll boot from the DVD and (hopefully) do a *clean* install of Win10. And (hopefully) Microsoft will recognize the laptop as already officially registered. Will this plan work? Am I missing anything important? Do I need to get all the drivers first? Or will the upgrade process grab all the needed drivers? My friend said when he did this process it got all the needed drivers. I already did a backup System Image of Win10 to an external hard drive, and I made a System Recovery DVD. There's no personal files or documents on the existing Win10 drive. Thanks,

After reading this info message from M3110w, I do not have answers but I have more questions.

I did my upgrade fro 8.1 to win10 about three weeks ago, and that all went fine. I believe my new system is all fine but I have not yet done a "clean" install. I have made several different ISO file saves on DVD and each of them seemed save OK, as I read one of them as "esd-iso" UDF DVD-RW 3.28GB on 8-14-15 and by that time I had permanent activation.

??? Is a "clean install" required before a system transfer is done to an SSD? ....as I really do not understand that yet... So is that just booting the new upgraded system with the ISO file.. or what needs to be done. ???

I still have not deleted any of the files/folders in my /windows.old folder - as I do not need the space.

Should I delete the folder /windows.old at this time?? and what command should I use to delete it ???

I have ordereda new 500gb evo SATAIII samsung SSD and it will arrive soon. I downloaded Macrium Trial version and used that software yesterday to make a clone of my win10 upgraded OS to an extra 1TB backup HHD that I have extra, and I believe that cloned well as I am able to read the files on it.

I guess I best stop asking questions here.... but I always have more questions.. Thanks for any answers, comments or thoughts to my my message above. All be safe. V/r Cliff M.

Hi @Joergi, Thanks for the info. Somewhere I read that the Win10 ISO file has the most common drivers so I'll take my chances and install it. If drivers are missing I'll download them as needed. Cheers,

acmanten said:

After reading this info message from M3110w, I do not have answers but I have more questions.

I did my upgrade fro 8.1 to win10 about three weeks ago, and that all went fine. I believe my new system is all fine but I have not yet done a "clean" install. I have made several different ISO file saves on DVD and each of them seemed save OK, as I read one of them as "esd-iso" UDF DVD-RW 3.28GB on 8-14-15 and by that time I had permanent activation.

??? Is a "clean install" required before a system transfer is done to an SSD? ....as I really do not understand that yet... So is that just booting the new upgraded system with the ISO file.. or what needs to be done. ???

I still have not deleted any of the files/folders in my /windows.old folder - as I do not need the space.

Should I delete the folder /windows.old at this time?? and what command should I use to delete it ???

I have ordereda new 500gb evo SATAIII samsung SSD and it will arrive soon. I downloaded Macrium Trial version and used that software yesterday to make a clone of my win10 upgraded OS to an extra 1TB backup HHD that I have extra, and I believe that cloned well as I am able to read the files on it.

I guess I best stop asking questions here.... but I always have more questions.. Thanks for any answers, comments or thoughts to my my message above. All be safe. V/r Cliff M.

Hello acmanten, Sounds like your situation is the same as mine. Based on my research so far it seems that using the Win10 ISO DVD to do a clean upgrade should work because you've already successfully upgraded to Win10. As mentioned by someone else, if your Win10 upgraded pc registers OK with Microsoft you're good to go since Microsoft mainly locks on to the motherboard which usually is stable.

In any case you'll have the old drive handy as a backup after you install the new drive.

Post here how it goes with your clean install and I'll do the same. Thanks,