New
#400
Thank you so much for these step-by-step instructions! I feel fairly confident in where I'm going now but, if you don't mind, let my lay my specific situation out here:
I recently purchased a Dell Inspiron 17-7778 laptop (2-in-1). It came with Win 10 Home installed on a 1TB 5400rpm HDD and 12 GB RAM. I upgraded the RAM to 16 GB (max'd out) and installed a Samsung 850 EVO M.2 SSD, with the intent of moving the OS to the SSD.
I started by cloning the HDD to SSD, but ran into trouble and, after more research, determined that a clean install is a much better option for me anyway. I am still booting to the original HDD, but I can see the SSD in File Explorer.
I have created a USB Recovery and used the Microsoft media creation tool to create a USB installation media.
My plan is to:
1. Format the SSD to get rid of the clone.
2. Disconnect the original HDD, leaving only the new, clean, SSD
3. Follow the instructions in this original post, booting from the USB created with Windows media creation tool.
Windows 10 was pre-installed on this machine, and I don't have an activation key - -but, if I'm understanding correctly, the new install should be able to detect the key, even though I'm installing onto a new hard drive, right?
Does that sound right? Anything glaring that I'm missing? Or small tips? Or a word of prayer, perhaps? :)
Thanks!
plaidford