Question Can I upgrade to a larger nvme drive without a recovery usb?

[lightbulbsocket]

Hi. I just bought an HP Pavilion gaming laptop with a 256 GB nvme drive andd want to swap to 1000 GB nvme drive from my previous laptop. It's not that old and a better drive all around. I'm not concerned about any data on either drive. I keep getting an error message when I try to create a usb recovery drive that has system files saved to it. Is there a way to upgrade without a recovery drive that preserves my windows license?

Also, the system currently has a single 8GB stick of DDR4 2666 ram in it. Will it be okay to use the 16GB stick of DDR4 2666?

Thanks for any and all help.

 

[Darkbreeze]

If you don't care about the data or you already have any important files backed up, then you shouldn't need to bother with "recovery" drives or discs. That's not how you want to install anyhow. You want to do a CLEAN install on the new drive or clone the old drive to the new drive.

If you want to clone it, you can use Macrium reflect to do so and use the procedure at the following link to perform the clone.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/clone-hdd-to-ssd.3619664/post-21831138


Or, do a clean install, which is what I'd recommend. You'll end up with something better and cleaner than cloning what you got from the manufacturer anyhow. Those installations that come on them come already loaded with bloatware, crapware, worthless trials and other undesirable software or configurations. Doing a clean install is much more desirable.

Just make sure you attach the Windows license to yourself via a Microsoft account if you haven't already.

How to associate your windows 10 license with a Microsoft account

Reactivating Windows 10 after a hardware change

Windows build 1607 (Or newer) and activation after a hardware change



and in case you should ever need to do a CLEAN install of Windows, this guide will help to ensure it gets done properly.

How to do a CLEAN installation of Windows 10, the RIGHT way​