Replacing my laptop hard drive with a ssd

You can clone Windows 7 to the SSD, but it is greatly preferable to do a clean install the first time to the SSD, with your bios set to AHCI sata mode. If you don't use your optical drive much, there are converters that allow you to use your optical bay for a secondary HDD for storage.

yeah y'know how it is these days. they dont really give you the windows dvd in the first place and the factory widows that comes with the laptop is all cluttered. Well i guess i can create a windows recovery disk. The only thing that i'm kinda not sure about is that, when i make a recovery disk at this point , will it just have windows on it or will it end up trying to create an image of my whole hard drive.

If you can borrow a windows dvd, you can use that to do a clean install on the ssd. Make certain that the sata mode is ahci so you can enable trim. You can reactivate using the activation code from the sticker on the laptop. If you want to preserve the settings or other files, export them first using windows easy transfer.
After install, you can import some or all of your files. Apps must be reinstalled.

You can download any of the Windows 7 versions from Microsoft as they have a trial program -- just make sure to get the same version as you have now so your activation code will be correct.

so i just download the windows on to the ssd and then just swap out the old hard drive a with a new ssd? that just sounds too good to be true. So whats the catch?

Best answer selected by bish82.

hey thanks real beast! really appreciate it.