How to setup a new hard drive in a laptop and how to install windows without disk

[BillyBrown]

Hello. Recently my hard drive in my laptop started to fail and its out of warranty. therefore I need to setup the hard drive myself. I have 2 problems, first, is i need to know what i need to do in order to ensure this new hard drive is working correctly. i assume i will need to re-install all my programs? i have all my data i want backed up. but is there anything i need to do once the drive is in the machine? also I assume i will need to install a fresh copy of windows. i am currently on windows 10. my other problem is my laptop model doesn't have a disc tray which is rather strange, therefore i cannot use a disc to install. is there any way i can install windows on this new hard drive without a disc? also my apologies if anything i said didn't make sense, i am a complete computer newb

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the community, BillyBrown!

Well, I assume that the Windows 10 version on your laptop was pre-installed when you bought it, right?
If that's so, you can simply create a bootable USB flash drive on another computer with the same version using these guidelines: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/clean-install
Once you go online, if the OS was pre-installed it should automatically activate. However, if you encounter any difficulties with the activation, you should contact MS customer support for assistance (phone activation).
Once you've bought and mounted the new HDD in your laptop, you can simply start the Windows installation process. The OS installer should take care of the initialization and partitioning/formatting of the drive.

Hope this was helpful. Keep me posted if you have more questions!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[BillyBrown]

Welcome to the community, BillyBrown!

Well, I assume that the Windows 10 version on your laptop was pre-installed when you bought it, right?
If that's so, you can simply create a bootable USB flash drive on another computer with the same version using these guidelines: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/clean-install
Once you go online, if the OS was pre-installed it should automatically activate. However, if you encounter any difficulties with the activation, you should contact MS customer support for assistance (phone activation).
Once you've bought and mounted the new HDD in your laptop, you can simply start the Windows installation process. The OS installer should take care of the initialization and partitioning/formatting of the drive.

Hope this was helpful. Keep me posted if you have more questions!
SuperSoph_WD

it wasn't pre-installed it originally had windows 8 on it. I downloaded windows 10