Laptop 1TB HDD to 1TB SSD conversion - what do i need to do?

safsnowball

enfield_freddy wrote: »

ok , I did actually point out a case to hold the drive for about £5 , this can even be used afterwards ,


now then we hit a problem , I have used mini disk tool , because it allows you to set the parameter's up for a SSD , I have not use Macrium Reflect however .




I do know that to do a disk clone from an active windows drive tyo a new drive , the machine has to be rebooted out of windows and it copies in a DOS environment , however I have yet to get a USB drive to be recognised at this point




"When happy do upgrade to Win 10 and once it's activated you have the option of a clean install. "


he can do a clean install now , but is worried about d/loading some games on a slow internet

If the OP wants to take advantage of the free Windows 10 offer he has to perform the upgrade from 8.1 to 10 first, make sure it activates and only then can he do the clean install.

Macrium Reflect will do all that is necessary to clone the drive without any issues with the USB recognition.

enfield_freddy

well based on the posting by safsnowball the OP ,should just spend £5 on a case (as per amazon link) , update his machine free to win 10 then do a clone using Macrium Reflect , then follow safsnowballs advice how to tell win 10 that there is now a ssd drive fitted in win 10


job done £5 outlay

motorguy

enfield_freddy wrote: »

well based on the posting by safsnowball the OP ,should just spend £5 on a case (as per amazon link) , update his machine free to win 10 then do a clone using Macrium Reflect , then follow safsnowballs advice how to tell win 10 that there is now a ssd drive fitted in win 10


job done £5 outlay

That was my original scenario, buy the drive, and use a cable to clone from the HDD in the laptop -> the SSD, then fit the SSD.

Not sure why i'd want to / need to have access to another PC to do that, as someone suggested?

Also, for clarification, the machine has already been upgraded to Win10.

Its got me thinking now though. I guess theres no real risk in buying the drive and doing a fresh install, then just letting the games download. The only other s/w of significant is Office 365 which is just a download again anyway.

If all else failed, i could just go down the cloning route.

Probably wont go down the twin drive route - as i said it would need possibly 2 m.2 drives and the bracket required to hold them in place isnt sold separately by Dell anyway.

enfield_freddy

yes fit the new drive and do a new install , and download the needed games copy any data/photos etc onto pendrives etc before swopping the drives

poppellerant

I've had a couple of thoughts.

Do you have an optical drive installed in the laptop? If so, you could very easily install the SSD drive and an adaptor such as this to temporarily mount the harddrive into your optical drive bay and clone it to your SSD.

My other idea is just to buy a cheap USB backup harddrive, clone your current installation with Macrium to the drive, swap the harddrive and SSD drives round and clone from the USB harddrive to the SSD. Obviously this is the more expensive method, but you'll end up with a backup drive at the end of it. Backups are never bad.

motorguy

poppellerant wrote: »

I've had a couple of thoughts.

Do you have an optical drive installed in the laptop? If so, you could very easily install the SSD drive and an adaptor such as this to temporarily mount the harddrive into your optical drive bay and clone it to your SSD.

My other idea is just to buy a cheap USB backup harddrive, clone your current installation with Macrium to the drive, swap the harddrive and SSD drives round and clone from the USB harddrive to the SSD. Obviously this is the more expensive method, but you'll end up with a backup drive at the end of it. Backups are never bad.

No, no optical drive.

I think the cable solution allows you to treat the new SSD drive like a secondary drive and clone to it so no need for an intermediary device?

safsnowball

motorguy wrote: »

I think the cable solution allows you to treat the new SSD drive like a secondary drive and clone to it so no need for an intermediary device?

Yes correct.

almillar

Lots of advice above should see you through but I just wanted to reiterate - you don't just clone from HDD to SSD. SSDs need to have TRIM enabled to prolong the life of the SSD and even out how many writes are performed on each part. If you do a fresh install of Windows 7/8/10 on an SSD, it will recognise it and use TRIM, if not, you need another way of doing it, of which it looks like a few are described above. Do this as soon as you can after getting Windows onto the new drive.

System

That's very interseting. I have checked the TRIM on 3 machines I have here that were upgraded by simply cloning the existing HD to SSD using mini-tool partition wizard. All have trim enabled.

So the statement you don't just clone from HDD to SSD is obviously false.

I understood that it is enabled by default in Windows 7 but obviously does nothing if a spinning disk is fitted.

ETA

Just checked on both a Win 7 Home Premium and a Windows 10 Pro laptop that both have spinning disks and TRIM is enabled on both. The only proviso for ensuring that TRIM is enabled is that the SATA mode must be AHCI and not ATA.

So bottom line is that unless you have been !!!!!!ing about with it then it is enabled and you don't have to worry about it

enfield_freddy

mini partition tools as stated in my post above has the ability to make the settings for ssd