Windows 10: Laptop with SSD,HDD and W8.1: remove HDD before upgrading ?

hi,

Im runnig a laptop (MSI GT72-2QD, i7, GTX 970M) with an internal SSD (256 GB) and an internal HDD (1TB) .
Win 8.1 came preinstalled with this machine. Id like to upgrade the machine to W10 *only* but I do not want to clean instal W10 (not yet).

My question:
Should i remove the internal HDD *before* upgrading to prevent important boot files (and other important system files) from being installed on the HDD ? I'd like to replace the internal HDD by a brand new internal SSD few weeks
after the upgrade... ...and i wonder if my laptop will still be bootable with the new hardware.

thx and greets from Germany!

:)

 

Upgrading from HDD to SSD on Windows 10

Hi,

I am planning to upgrade my current HDD (on my laptop) to a Samsung Evo SSD and I have some queries regarding the process. I am aware of the whole media creating process but I'd just wanna know if there would be any activation issues. I believe these are
the steps involved.

1. Download the media creation tool. (Please confirm which one)

2. Replace HDD by SSD.

3. Boot from USB Drive and install on SSD. (It should not ask for a license)

4. Install all drivers.

Is this it? Did I miss any step?

Thank you

 

Replacing hdd with ssd in a laptop.

Hey,

I have an acer laptop that has an hdd with windows 10. I would like to replace this hdd with an ssd, but with a clean install of windows 10. Is there a way to transfer win 10 and activate it onto the ssd.

The laptop does not have an additional hdd option.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Nikaash

 

Windows 10 on HDD to a new SSD

I have recently replaced the 500 GB HDD in my laptop running Windows 10 with a 480 GB SSD. The laptop was fully configured with my applications and other settings. The steps I took were as follows:

1) Shrink the C: drive so it was significantly smaller than the SSD (by at least 100 GB) using the Disk Management tools in W10.

2) Copy all the files from D: onto an external HDD.

3) Download Ubuntu Linux and burn on to a DVD.

4) Download Windows 10 from Download Windows 10 and burn this on to a DVD.

5) Close down and boot the laptop from the Ubuntu DVD from step 3 (I used a USB DVD rewriter).

6) Plug in the external HDD.

7) Open a Linux terminal and cd to the external HDD.

8) Copy the C: partition to the external HDD using a command such as:

dd bs=1024k if=/dev/sda1 of=C-drive

where sda1 is adjusted to point to the correct partition.

9) Close down and remove the external HDD.

10) Remove the HDD and replace with the SSD.

11) Perform a clean install Windows 10 from the DVD from step 4. Deleting all partitions from the SSD if it has had any created on it. When it asked for the product key, there was an option to enter it later. Make sure that the C: drive that is created is
the same size or bigger than the C: drive was on the HDD.

12) Repeat steps 5, 6 and 7 then run the command

dd bs=1024k if=C-drive of=/dev/sda4

With the clean install of W10 64bit, sda4 was the C: drive on the SSD after the installation.

13) Reboot from the SSD. The first couple of times my laptop reported errors and went into repair and diagnostic cycles. The last one said something like Reboot or Go to further tools. I cannot remember the exact messages but the meaning was as I have described.
I rebooted and Windows 10 came up and ran perfectly.

14) With the SSD working I shrank the C: drive a few GB to make sure the physical space was the same size as the actual filesystem.

15) Create a D: format it and copy all the saved files on to the new D: from the external HDD.

Job done. All my applications worked perfectly and the laptop connected to my wireless network without needing the pass phrase re-entering. I had tried several other ways of cloning the HDD to the SSD, but as the SSD was 20 GB smaller this was the only way
I managed to get it to work.

I hope this helps others to make the HDD to SSD transition.