Questions about moving Windows 10 from 1 tb HDD to 240gb ssd

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Adviceasker

Adviceasker

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Jan 17, 2014
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So I've read a lot of questions and answers about moving a windows 10 installation from an HDD to an SSD, however I still have a lot of questions. I want to go from having Windows 10 on my 1 tb seagate HDD to my 240gb Kingston SSD (I'm told cloning won't work due to size differences). So here are my questions:

1. Is the best method just to do a fresh install onto the ssd? How do I accomplish that?

2. After doing that, what do I do with the Windows files on the HDD?

3. If I were to keep my document, music, pictures, etc folders on my hdd, would windows still be able to access them correctly?

4. Assuming this all goes well, what would I do in the event that the SSD fails?

Lastly, would all my windows settings be able to be transferred over and would all my applications still work fine? Thanks in advance for any answers, this is my first time attempting to use an ssd.
 
Solution
Onus
You would need to do a clean install then. Remove the old hard drive, put in the SSD, and install Windows to it, then install any programs you still want.
After you have your system up and running again, then re-install your original hard drive. Make sure the SSD is the boot drive in your BIOS (likely under "Hard drive BBS Priority" or similar).
If at all possible, I would highly recommend that you obtain another hard drive, possibly external, that you can use for backups. All drives fail eventually, and data that isn't backed up will be lost.
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Onus

Onus

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Jan 27, 2006
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If you can reduce the USED space on your 1TB drive to less than will fit in the formatted space on the 240GB drive (probably around 220GB), you can indeed clone to the SSD using a program like Acronis. Backup your data to another drive and/or uninstall programs to get down to that size. After the clone, you can leave the old files on the 1TB drive as a backup, OR, use Acronis' backup features to make a new image backup of your SSD. You would be able to restore that to a new drive if your SSD fails.
You can point most library folders and "My ..." folders to a different drive. Other programs might need to be set manually, such as Firefox' download folder location.
 
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Adviceasker

Adviceasker

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Sorry, forgot to mention that I do not have the option to backup my HDD to another drive as I don't have any other drive, which is why I'm also asking about a clean install to the SSD. Also I have about 860gb used on the HDD so deleting enough to make it fit isn't really a viable option for me.
 
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Onus

Onus

Titan
Jan 27, 2006
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You would need to do a clean install then. Remove the old hard drive, put in the SSD, and install Windows to it, then install any programs you still want.
After you have your system up and running again, then re-install your original hard drive. Make sure the SSD is the boot drive in your BIOS (likely under "Hard drive BBS Priority" or similar).
If at all possible, I would highly recommend that you obtain another hard drive, possibly external, that you can use for backups. All drives fail eventually, and data that isn't backed up will be lost.
 
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Solution
Adviceasker

Adviceasker

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Jan 17, 2014
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Thanks. So since I upgraded to Windows 10 from 8.1, will I need to have the product key or will it recognize my hardware configuration? Also what is the best way to do a clean install? I have always used the disk but this pc has no disk drive.

I guess I will go ahead and order an external drive, what has kept me from it so far is a lot of reports of the smaller sized ones (particularly seagate) being badly made and overheating the drives.
 
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Astralv

Astralv

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May 6, 2013
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There many threads and articles about installing Windows 10 clean after 8 to 10 upgrade. Just search for it. You can also install from USB. There used to be a link to download Win 10 .iso file which can be saved to the USB drive.
 
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