I'm having problems installing my first SSD.

[Thomas W]

I bough this $299 notebook pc with windows 8 in 2012 because I couldn't afford anything better and even though it's not exactly the best computer to upgrade and has a locked BIOS/FSB, I've enjoyed playing around with it and have upgraded the RAM and the optical drive and improved the cooling system.

Today I thought having an SSD might improve the speed a tiny bit and would be nice to have and my computer store only had one type left so I bought a Kingston 240gb SSDNow Solid State Drive, and plan to install it in my Acer notebook PC. I'm having a problem because the Kingston SSD came with an optical disk that is supposed to have some sort of program called "ACRONIS" on it that would help me transfer everything on my current HDD onto the new SSD which I plan to install inside this notebook PC.

I can't think of anything to do aside from take a new USB 3.0 hi-speed drive and use the Acer Recovery Management program to create a backup image and then try and boot from that?

Do I have to buy a new version of windows, or is there a free software or a software I can try for free to create a copy of my current OS and put it on a new drive?

APU: AMD A6-4400m w/TurboCORE Technology up to 3.2 ghz. AMD Radeon HD 7520G 512mb Memory
Model: Acer V3-551-7844
Screen: 15.6 '' HD LED LCD
RAM: 8 Gigabytes of Crucial hi-speed RAM
Current Hard Drive: Western Digital Blue Caviar 750gb
Optical Drive: Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Combo Drive

I have a decent understanding of hardware, and know how to install components etc, but aside from that I'm a complete dummy! I know many of you are experts and have so much knowledge about computers and electronics and I'm truly grateful for your help. Thanks so much everyone!

Sincerely,

=Tom=

 

[popatim]

If your currently used space on the 750gb is below 200GB then yes you can clone otherwise you are looking at either uninstalling stuff until it is or doing a fresh install of windows (which is the recommended method)

 

[Thomas W]

I checked and I am only using approximately 80gb out of the entire 750gb hard drive. I'm just curious how I can my copy of windows from this computer onto the SSD because I dont have a disk for windows it just came on the computer. What program should I use if there is one?

 

[popatim]

How do you backup your laptop?
There should be a way for you to make your restore disks; check your manual.

The SSD will come with cloning software provided you have a way to connect both drives simultaneously. (yes you can attach thru a usb adapter)

 

[Thomas W]

How do you backup your laptop?
There should be a way for you to make your restore disks; check your manual.

The SSD will come with cloning software provided you have a way to connect both drives simultaneously. (yes you can attach thru a usb adapter)

Thanks I finally figured it out thanks to you. The SSD came with this case that you can unlock and put your old HDD in, and I had installed the SSD empty into the notebook and tried using a USB stick to get everything onto it but it was failing, but then when I read about hooking up both the drives, I hooked up the old one on the exterior, and the new SSD inside the notebook and kept the CD with cloning software inside the optical drive, and changed the boot order or something so it booted from the CD and then the new SSD and the cloning software started up and let me transfer everything over to the new SSD including my copy of windows that came on my computer.

I have my old HDD in the external case it came with and can use it as an external drive now, so that's cool and I'm noticing the benefits of SSD, it's so much faster! Everything is running smoothly. Thanks for you help!