Question How do you upgrade the system drive these days?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
L

Lieto

Distinguished
Nov 2, 2014
33
0
18,530
This might very well be a stupid question but I'll ask anyway.

So I have a boot SSD with windows 10 that I am using for maybe last 7+ years.

I want to buy a new NVME drive and make it my system drive. What is the step by step way to go about it? Things I am somewhat confused about:
  1. How do I re-use my windows key? I don't know what it is.
  2. Can I retain my installed software on old SSD or will I have to re-install absolutely everything?
  3. Can I sort everything without usb drives? I.e. download everything to old SSD and install a system into NVME then make it a bootable drive in bios?

Thank you
 
Lieto said:
This might very well be a stupid question but I'll ask anyway.

So I have a boot SSD with windows 10 that I am using for maybe last 7+ years.

I want to buy a new NVME drive and make it my system drive. What is the step by step way to go about it? Things I am somewhat confused about:
  1. How do I re-use my windows key? I don't know what it is.
  2. Can I retain my installed software on old SSD or will I have to re-install absolutely everything?
  3. Can I sort everything without usb drives? I.e. download everything to old SSD and install a system into NVME then make it a bootable drive in bios?

Thank you
Click to expand...
2 options:

Clone from old to new. This usually works.


Fresh install. OS and everything else. This always works.


Give us some details:
Size of the current drive.
How much space is consumed on it.
Size of the new drive.
What motherboard?

Yes, you will probably need a flash drive.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Order 66
You don't need a product key these days. If the Windows system has been activated then it will automatically activate again if all you change is an SSD. If you change the CPU and/or motherboard then it won't (although there are workarounds for that).

My personal advice would be to reinstall. As mentioned, it's guaranteed to deliver a stable and reliable system. Disk cloning works most of the time but can produce some curious problems.
 
Size of the current drive - Two drives system 200 + 500
How much space is consumed on it - 20 + 100 available
Size of the new drive - 1tb
What motherboard? - MSI PRO 650M-A
 
OK, should be easy.

Read through this a time or two.
Ask questions if anything is unclear.

-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Both drives must be the same partitioning scheme, either MBR or GPT
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung target SSD)
If you are cloning from a SATA drive to PCIe/NVMe, you may need to install the relevant driver for this new NVMe/PCIe drive.
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up

Verify the system boots with ONLY the current "C drive" connected.
If not, we have to fix that first.

Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive

[Ignore this section if using the SDM. It does this automatically]
If you are going from a smaller drive to a larger, by default, the target partition size will be the same as the Source. You probably don't want that
You can manipulate the size of the partitions on the target (larger)drive
Click on "Cloned Partition Properties", and you can specify the resulting partition size, to even include the whole thing
[/end ignore]

Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD. This is not optional.
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD

(swapping cables is irrelevant with NVMe drives, but DO disconnect the old drive for this next part)
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------
 
  • Like
Reactions: Order 66
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom