HP250G2 Windows 8.1 - new SSD

scattersong

Hi everyone


Apologies for another SSD related thread....


I have a HP 250 G2 (Windows 8.1) with a failing HDD (weird noises, some minor windows errors, data loss etc) that I'm currently using till the HDD inevitably dies.


I was going to replace it with a SSD instead of buying a new laptop.
Was looking at the following models, either integral or crucial:


https://www.mymemory.co.uk/integral-240gb-p-series-5-sata-iii-ssd-drive-560mb-s.html


https://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/k20ce/CT11159769


Would either of these be suitable? The teardown of the laptop itself looks pretty complicated.


I was planning on installing the SSD, then using the HP dvds to restore the laptop to factory default?


Would that work? Or am I missing some crucial step?


Thanks in advance

arciere

Yes, that works (personal preference for the Crucial).

Make sure your DVDs are readable, otherwise you need to check if you can create new recovery disks from Windows before the drive dies completely.

Worst case you can download the ISO from Microsoft and use your key, but it's a pain having to install all the drivers from scratch.

John_Gray

You can clone the current hard drive to the new SSD using a "Crucial Easy Laptop Data Transfer Cable for SSD" USB adapter which you can buy from Crucial (<£10) with their SSD, using a cut-down version of Acronis Trueimage which they also supply.

Works very well. The copy takes some tens of minutes, less if you have a USB 3.0 socket on the laptop.

arciere

John_Gray wrote: »

You can clone the current hard drive to the new SSD using a "Crucial Easy Laptop Data Transfer Cable for SSD" USB adapter which you can buy from Crucial (<£10) with their SSD, using a cut-down version of Acronis Trueimage which they also supply.

Works very well. The copy takes some tens of minutes, less if you have a USB 3.0 socket on the laptop.

I would really avoid that, if the HDD is about to die you will probably be wasting time, and if it does work, you may run into errors days after you cloned it, if the sectors you copied the data from were damaged or contained faulty information.

Plus, disk replacement is always a good opportunity to install Windows from scratch.

Frozen_up_north

I’ve swapped a hard drive to a Crucial SSD in an Asus laptop. A very easy job using Acronis software. Crucial have a compatibility checker on their site to ensure you get a guaranteed compatible SSD drive. You need an external USB caddy, Crucial supply them. There is a video showing how to use an SSD on the Crucial site, however it doesn’t cover accessing the drive on a laptop... some are easier to access than others.

The Acronis software will transfer a large HD to a smaller SSD, provided the amount of data on the HDD doesn’t exceed the size of the SSD. For example if you have 150 GB of storage used on a 1 TB HDD, it will transfer to a 250 GB SSD.

System

Personally I would get the product key for your Windows 8 installation, download the installation disc for Windows 10 and do a fresh install of Windows 10 on the new SSD, using the Windows 8 product key, instead of Windows 8.

unforeseen

Tarambor wrote: »

Personally I would get the product key for your Windows 8 installation, download the installation disc for Windows 10 and do a fresh install of Windows 10 on the new SSD, using the Windows 8 product key, instead of Windows 8.

And the handy thing about upgrading to Windows 10 is that you can use the HP Image Assistant to install all the drivers.

EveryWhere

scattersong wrote: »

Hi everyone


Apologies for another SSD related thread....


I have a HP 250 G2 (Windows 8.1) with a failing HDD (weird noises, some minor windows errors, data loss etc) that I'm currently using till the HDD inevitably dies.


I was going to replace it with a SSD instead of buying a new laptop.
Was looking at the following models, either integral or crucial:


https://www.mymemory.co.uk/integral-240gb-p-series-5-sata-iii-ssd-drive-560mb-s.html


https://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/k20ce/CT11159769


Would either of these be suitable? The teardown of the laptop itself looks pretty complicated.


I was planning on installing the SSD, then using the HP dvds to restore the laptop to factory default?


Would that work? Or am I missing some crucial step?


Thanks in advance

Crucial far and wide the best. In fact one of the top consumer drives out there. Teardown less complicated than it looks.

You don't need any product key if you want to move to Windows 10. Just use the gatherosstate/GenuineTicket.xml method whilst your current drive is still working.
It allows you to record your 'activation' and then apply it to the cleanly installed Windows 10.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/23354-clean-install-windows-10-directly-without-having-upgrade-first.html

If sticking with 8.1, the HP Recovery DVDs will do fine. Though of course they will re-install any unnecessary software originally supplied with the device.

scattersong

Brilliant, thank you so much everyone!

Have gone for the crucial drive. I'll probably stick with Windows 8.1 just for simplicity's sake - that way I know there'll be no issues with drivers or other weird problems.