What dI I need to do after installing a new hard drive?

I have researched this but either the threads are very old or everyone has a different opinion. I am going from 500GB, 5400rpm to a 1TB, 7200rpm SATA HD. I don't have any installation disks as my laptop didn't come with any. I have upgraded to Windows 10 & I have made a recovery USB flash drive & created a system image on a USB backup hard drive. Do I need a separate boot disk media or can I boot up with the recovery disk? How should I recover with the system image? Do I need to partition the new hard drive, it is a bare drive, or will the system image do that? Sorry, I'm very new at this.

First try booting from the USB recovery flash drive and that should have the option to restore the image you made on the USB backup hard drive.

TechnoMage said:

Hi! I can only tell you how I do it, and maybe you can equate my method to your own setup.

I make regular (weekly) backups of my C: drive, compressed and verified, to an external 1TB hard drive. Since the external drive is so large, I can store multiple backup Image files. I manually name each backup file, for easy identification.
To run my backup/restore program, (Ghost 11.5), I boot from a DOS formatted CD and run Ghost in DOS, so it's oblivious to what is actually on the C: drive. Once a backup Image file is created, I run the verify option and then, once verified, I disconnect the external drive and reboot my PC to Windows.

Then should I change hard drives, which I did a while back, when my PNY SSD shot craps and I replaced it with a SanDisk 120 SSD, I just install the new drive, boot up with my Ghost boot CD, connect my external 1TB USB 3.0 hard drive, and run Ghost 11.5 to do a "Partition from Image" (restore) operation. Since Ghost backs up the Boot Sector and partition information of my C: drive, when it later restores that partition image, the HD is immediately bootable.

When the restore of my C: drive image finishes, I'm ready to remove the Boot CD and boot normally into the newly written copy of my OS.
That worked like a champ, when installing my new SSD. I've used basically the same technique to install new HD's into dozens of PC's over the years. It's a fairly foolproof technique.
I credit most of my successes to a great Backup program that works outside the OS being backed up. Ghost 11.5 will backup and restore any OS, from Windows 98 to Windows 10 and even Linux and Windows Server.

The secret to my success, is in having a Backup/Restore Program, that runs from a boot disk, and also having recent Backup Image Files of my OS, to use when a Restore becomes necessary.
I've found that the only BAD Backup is the one I neglected to make.

There may be other Backup/Restore programs that will also work, but the ones I've tried over the years always left something to be desired. So I always went back to what I know works.

Good Luck to you,
TechnoMage

Thank you so much. This really helps.:)

RolandJS said:

Yesterday, I could not post into any thread because of the school's ISP; I could only PM.
This is the PM exchange.

Originally Posted by RolandJS - 12 Hours Ago 02:41 PM
My first question is: can you clone the old HD onto the new HD -- before setting new HD as Primary and Active and setting the old HD Local [and quick-formatting it at least once]? If the old HD will become resident elsewhere, ye should full-format, just once is enough.

Can I use a system image created in Windows 10 instead of cloning? -- ejb0618
[This was one reply to my beginning question.]
I do not know the answer for sure; I think: no, cannot. -- rolandjs reply

Originally Posted by ejb0618 - 12 Hours Ago 03:11 PM
I'm afraid I wouldn't know how to do that.

Originally Posted by RolandJS - 11 Hours Ago 03:40 PM
You will have to download and install Macrium Reflect [free or pay-for] or something similar. Create a usb or dvd boot for future restore purposes; using the menu provided -- you clone the old smaller HD onto the new larger HD. I cannot give you any step by step 'cause every backup/restore/clone program has a different menu.

So after I change the hard drive I use a bootable USB flash drive to boot up, download my cloning software from the Internet & clone the image that is on my USB hard drive (that I already did first) to the new internal hard drive? I have paid Acronis. -- ejb0618 reply to the PM just above by rolandjs

If I understand correctly, yes, use either Acronis True Image's usb or dvd boot and clone old HD onto new HD.
Then mark new HD Primary and set new HD as Active. I may have OCD, however, I recommend eventually having
the new HD in computer's HD Zero [or Disk 1] slot. If there is ever a 2nd physical HD for data, have that data HD in
computer's HD One [Disk 2] slot. Again, after confirming new HD's Windows OS is aok, you must format the old HD!

Thank you Roland.

NavyLCDR said:

First try booting from the USB recovery flash drive and that should have the option to restore the image you made on the USB backup hard drive.

Thank you!