Please close this thread, it did not get answered helpfully and I have solved my original problem. Thank you

[computers_are_freaky]

Hi guys.
I'm sorry for asking this age old question again, but I would rather have someone to chat with rather than reading old threads.

My situation:
I currently have ALL my data, OS and apps on my HDD ( a massive 160GB of capacity :lol and in total that is less than 80Gb. I just got a new SSD (late present I wasn't expecting) and have already upgraded to windows 10 a while ago, however, I only got my OS because I was a student at my local university and got a copy of 8.1 Pro, but it has now expired, so the product key is no longer valid.

I have veryfied this by trying to make a usb boot drive, but it just said unable to verify product key after I input the correct key, so no idea what is going on there.

Anyway, I need to clone my HDD onto my SSD (ssd is a sandisk ultra II 240Gb) and then reformat the HDD (says baracuda on it, got it from an old pc but it still works) for my movies or something.
I have no other OS, so if this gets messed up, I am well and truly ****ed and will have to use linux or something.

Any and all help you can give me is welcome, thanking you in advance c_a_f

 

[Unkk]

Most of your Live CD images (Hiren's BootCD, UBCD4Win, and many Linux CDs) have programs to copy disks, including the boot sector. I would download and burn one of them, boot from it with your SSD connected via usb cable and duplicate your internal drive.

 

[computers_are_freaky]

Sorry, no disk reader

 

[Unkk]

you could use those images to make a usb drive bootable

 

[Unkk]

Try this: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

Or this: http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free/index.html

 

[computers_are_freaky]

So your suggestion is to make a complete backup of all my data on my HDD to my SSD? I think I could then set it as primary boot and test it, and if it works then reformat the HDD? Would it work?
Will try in the morning, bit late here right now, can tell you what happens in about 16 hours, when I can get on my pc again. Thanks for the help.

P.S. already tried the bootable sub idea, no idea why it didn't work. I'm guessing my key is no longer active, but whatever, hopefully I won't need it

 

[computers_are_freaky]

Ok, I'm back. Just installed the second link you posted

--Update--
Have cloned the HDD onto the SSD, all my files are there, but when I try to boot with only SSD, windows says no (blue screen and white text saying there was a problem). After some researching I found that the SSD is NOT marked as bootable in windows disk manager. Instead my HDD is set to bootable.The SSDt is set a s primary boot in bios and I am using AHCI. Any idea how to make it bootable?
I CANNOT reinstall, I do not have my key any more.

 

[computers_are_freaky]

Ok, all sorted. I will not select your repsonses as answers, because the software you recommended didn't work. I ended up doing a clone and then using the usb I had to read the key from my old OS and delete the old data.