New ssd and no windows disk!

[PainfulOrpheus]

Hi all and before you tell me to do a fresh install I don't have a windows disk at all. I have tried norton ghost that came with my samsung 830 but it wouldnt let me just migrate windows it wanted to move the whole dang drive which was about 500 gigs. I dont know how to move just windows. any help would be great.

 

[PainfulOrpheus]

Oh and PS. I dont have a partition of windows on my hdd. I just have a systems partition of like 11 gigs and another pqsystem which is like 24 megabytes. and drive c which is ~500G

 

[ncc74656]

short of deleting all extra data other than windows you wont be able to do this easily.
i recommend downloading a windows 7 ISO from the internet and using the product key that came with your computer to activate it. all win 7's are the same so long as you select the right version.

alliteratively you can order windows restore disks from the MFG

 

[PainfulOrpheus]

I thought of that idea but the thing is I cannot find an ISO file anywhere on microsoft and i dont want to download it illegally if possible. I contacted my computers manufacturer(even though the only thing left from that computer is the harddrive im replacing ) They wanted me to pay 20 dollars for it. I already paid for my windows once I dont plan on doing it again. could you post a link or a better way to search for it besides google?

 

[alyoshka]

Use Acronis True Image, create a variable image of your OS drive and then recover the image to the new HDD irrelevant of partitions.
It's a really great program to work with and has a lot of features.
I used it the other day since my SSD kinda failed, but, heck's it's back on track now, after a small heartache.

 

[PainfulOrpheus]

download that and it wanted me to pay just to copy the drive

 

[alyoshka]

It comes free with quite a few mobos and laptops these days, you can easily get it from one of the sites from the utilities section, I think.
And don't copy the drive, the evaluation version allows you full functionality upto 15 days.
All you need to do is create a recovery image and then recover it to the new hdd.

 

[PainfulOrpheus]

found the .iso it is about 4 gigs compressed well see if it works /crosses fingers

 

[PainfulOrpheus]

Best answer selected by PainfulOrpheus.