How to swap OS to another drive?

[prunehairs]

Hello!

I am receiving a laptop with a 1tb HDD and a 256NVMe ssd. The OS (Windows 10) will be on the ssd by default, however, I ordered a larger ssd for the computer. How can I go about putting the OS on the new ssd? I'm sure the answer is rather simple and I am over thinking it.

Thanks!

 

[USAFRet]

Hello!

I am receiving a laptop with a 1tb HDD and a 256NVMe ssd. The OS (Windows 10) will be on the ssd by default, however, I ordered a larger ssd for the computer. How can I go about putting the OS on the new ssd? I'm sure the answer is rather simple and I am over thinking it.

Thanks!

Presumably the laptop only has a single slot for that drive?
Install Macrium Reflect
Run it, and create an image of the C drive in a folder on the HDD
All partitions
Create a Macrium Rescue CD
Swap the NVMe drives
Boot from the Macrium Rescue CD, and select the image you created above.
Tell it which drive to recover on...the new large drive.
Once done, power off.
Take the CD out
Boot up, it should work.

 

[geofelt]

If your new ssd is Samsung, buy a usb to ssd adapter cable and run the free Samsung ssd migration utility.
Then simply replace the old ssd.

 

[prunehairs]

Hello!

I am receiving a laptop with a 1tb HDD and a 256NVMe ssd. The OS (Windows 10) will be on the ssd by default, however, I ordered a larger ssd for the computer. How can I go about putting the OS on the new ssd? I'm sure the answer is rather simple and I am over thinking it.

Thanks!

Presumably the laptop only has a single slot for that drive?
Install Macrium Reflect
Run it, and create an image of the C drive in a folder on the HDD
All partitions
Create a Macrium Rescue CD
Swap the NVMe drives
Boot from the Macrium Rescue CD, and select the image you created above.
Tell it which drive to recover on...the new large drive.
Once done, power off.
Take the CD out
Boot up, it should work.

Interesting solution but seems a bit more involved than I thought. The computer does only have 1 m.2 slot, sadly. Would it be possible to simply reinstall Windows from a USB drive? The thing that has me held up is whether or not the Windows 10 product key would transfer drives because I would want a fresh install anyways.

 

[USAFRet]

Hello!

I am receiving a laptop with a 1tb HDD and a 256NVMe ssd. The OS (Windows 10) will be on the ssd by default, however, I ordered a larger ssd for the computer. How can I go about putting the OS on the new ssd? I'm sure the answer is rather simple and I am over thinking it.

Thanks!

Presumably the laptop only has a single slot for that drive?
Install Macrium Reflect
Run it, and create an image of the C drive in a folder on the HDD
All partitions
Create a Macrium Rescue CD
Swap the NVMe drives
Boot from the Macrium Rescue CD, and select the image you created above.
Tell it which drive to recover on...the new large drive.
Once done, power off.
Take the CD out
Boot up, it should work.

Interesting solution but seems a bit more involved than I thought. The computer does only have 1 m.2 slot, sadly. Would it be possible to simply reinstall Windows from a USB drive? The thing that has me held up is whether or not the Windows 10 product key would transfer drives because I would want a fresh install anyways.

If you just want to do a clean install of the OS, sure.

1. Start the system up and get logged in. This will assure that the system is activated.
2. Create a Win 10 install media, either USB or DVD.
Download, install and run the MediaCreation tool, here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10:
3. Power off, swap the drives around
4. Power up and boot from the USB thing you made.
5. Install the Win 10 to the new larger drive.