Looking to purchase an SSD, is it possible to move the OS from my harddrive to the SSD?

[Protectereli]

My HDD is pretty old and its extremely slow, game loading times somewhere last up to 2 minutes, so I'm looking to purchase an SSD, my HDD is almost completely full at 1 TB as well. Ideally I'd like to move a bunch of stuff from my HDD to my SSD including the OS (Windows 7) as I lost the CD along time ago and don't wish to purchase a new one.

How would I go about doing this?

 

[Snipergod87]

You can move the OS if the drive you buy is larger than the used capacity on your 1TB HDD as data migration tools will move everything. IE you have 700GB used you need a 700GB or larger SSD. Also it is ill advised to fill a SSD to full.

I am not sure of a way of either moving the OS only over (it would invalidate all of your installs of games and programs), or reinstall Windows 7 without a disk or ISO to make a USB drive. There are tools to read the CD Key from within Windows, but that will only get you so far.

 

[USAFRet]

You can't move 'only' the OS.
You can't move 'part' of it, mostly.

You'll have to evaluate exactly what is taking up the space on that 1TB drive.
Stuff like Video/Music/Doc/Downloads....all those things can (probably) be left off. Other than that, everything goes.

Do you have another drive handy? Either internal or external?

 

[DelroyMonjo]

Speccy will give you your existing Windows OS key. Use the key to create an ISO and install on the new SSD. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7

 

[Protectereli]

You can't move 'only' the OS.
You can't move 'part' of it, mostly.

You'll have to evaluate exactly what is taking up the space on that 1TB drive.
Stuff like Video/Music/Doc/Downloads....all those things can (probably) be left off. Other than that, everything goes.

Do you have another drive handy? Either internal or external?

No other drives sadly, well anything I could use anyway, was thinking about putting all my games and pictures onto an external then the important stuff can go on the ssd

 

[Protectereli]

You can move the OS if the drive you buy is larger than the used capacity on your 1TB HDD as data migration tools will move everything. IE you have 700GB used you need a 700GB or larger SSD. Also it is ill advised to fill a SSD to full.

I am not sure of a way of either moving the OS only over (it would invalidate all of your installs of games and programs), or reinstall Windows 7 without a disk or ISO to make a USB drive. There are tools to read the CD Key from within Windows, but that will only get you so far.

Is migrating the data difficult or can I just kind of plug it in and do it? Also, do you know if running an HDD and SSD at the same time would be detrimental? I want to use my SSD for my games and what not but put all my pictures and videos on my HDD. Thanks for taking the time to reply!

 

[USAFRet]

Is migrating the data difficult or can I just kind of plug it in and do it? Also, do you know if running an HDD and SSD at the same time would be detrimental? I want to use my SSD for my games and what not but put all my pictures and videos on my HDD. Thanks for taking the time to reply!

It's not difficult, IF you have the space thing all worked out.
Running an SSD and HDD in the system is NOT detrimental. Many, many people do that, incl me.

Do you have another drive handy?
What size SSD are you considering?