Windows 7

Aidanmc

EveryWhere wrote: »

Have you posted the exact model details of your device somewhere?

Yeah i did say, its a HP Pavilion G6 - 1374ea currently running on windows 7,
Just to add
Processor Intel (R) Pentium(R) CPUB960 @ 2.20GHz
RAM 6GB
64 Bit OS

EveryWhere

Aidanmc wrote: »

Yeah i did say, its a HP Pavilion G6 - 1374ea currently running on windows 7,

First you've posted the exact model.

I should alert you to possible problems with the switchable Graphics when you install Windows 10. It doesn't look as if there are any suitable Drivers for when it comes to Windows 10.
So if you want to keep this, you may need to stick with Windows 7/8.1.
Will check to see if there is a possible solution. HP don't appear to provide one.

Best route would be to export your Bookmarks from the Browsers that you utilise and save the results. You can save them to the current HDD, as we won't be disturbing anything on the current drive.
Then we'll create the Windows 10 installation media using a USB Flash drive of at least 8 GB in capacity.
We'll then use the gatherosstate method to produce a GenuineTicket.xml file.
We create that as a back-up method of activation. This is to make sure that the new installation of Windows 10 will activate without us having to upgrade over the top of Windows 7.

Then we fit the SSD, install Windows 10 Pro to it and then activate it using the GenuineTicket.xml file.

You should now have a snappy installation of Windows 10 Pro. If you are happy with that, we then pop the old HDD into an external casing. Takes a minute, Costs between £4 & £6.
We can then plug that in to the laptop via USB and copy over whatever data we want from the old drive to the new...of course not forgetting to Import your Bookmarks/ Favourites to your newly installed Browsers.


You don't need to digest all of this in one go, as we'll go through it step by step.

melbury

Frozen_up_north wrote: »

An SSD is a solid state drive, as opposed to one that has a motor driving a spinning disk. They are just like a large “memory” card that is faster than a mechanical drive and not easily damaged by roughly handling the laptop. If you checked Crucial, as I mentioned earlier, they have all the info. Equally a Wikipedia search tells you all you need to know!

If you don’t feel confident installing Windows, there is little we can do. I guess you don’t backup your existing hard drive, so if it failed you would be stuck. With a reliable backup you can play around in the knowledge that you have a means to return your laptop to a working (Win 7) state in a few minutes.

I don't have a laptop, it is a desktop - does that make a difference?

EveryWhere

melbury wrote: »

I don't have a laptop, it is a desktop - does that make a difference?

No difference in principle. Desktop has the benefit of you being able to leave the original HDD in place.
With a laptop, you actually need to remove the old HDD and put the new SSD in it's place.
With your PC that won't likely be necessary. In addition to that, you can usually have both drives connected at the same time.
Windows being on the new SSD. The old HDD can be used for purely storage, staying put exactly where it is now.

Aidanmc

I've been researching ssd's!
I understand my laptop currently has a 750gb hdd capacity, which size of ssd would i require then?
By the way i don't really use my laptop for much apart from web browsing, the current hard drive still has 639gb free space!
I'm just wondering if i really need an ssd as really my machine is sufficient for my needs. Is it necessary to change to an ssd to install windows 10 or is there a way to use my existing drive?
Is it possible to just clear the existing drive and then clean install windows 10 to it? I could store my photos, etc on flash drive first.
thanks

EveryWhere

Aidanmc wrote: »

I've been researching ssd's!
I understand my laptop currently has a 750gb hdd capacity, which size of ssd would i require then?
By the way i don't really use my laptop for much apart from web browsing, the current hard drive still has 639gb free space!
I'm just wondering if i really need an ssd as really my machine is sufficient for my needs. Is it necessary to change to an ssd to install windows 10 or is there a way to use my existing drive?
Is it possible to just clear the existing drive and then clean install windows 10 to it? I could store my photos, etc on flash drive first.
thanks

It's a bit more complicated an explanation with your particular device.
But I would say that if you were going to clean install anyway, clean install to an SSD.
You'll really notice the difference in performance.

You can get the cheapest SSD if you don't want to spend much. They begin from around £16.50. You don't need to get the same size of drive.

But the benefit of getting an SSD in your case, is that you can try out the installation of Windows 10.
If not happy that you don't have use of your graphics card, you can try out Windows 8.1 Update 3 which will still be supported for years to come. If you hate that, you can still install Windows 7 or you have the option of just reinserting your old HDD.

So it's a fail-safe option with no real downsides, only benefits.

Aidanmc

Ok, i understand.
This ssd is compatible with my machine, according to Crucial website
https://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/pavilion-g6-1374ea/CT11286956
Its around £40 on Amazon.
What you think?

EveryWhere

Aidanmc wrote: »

Ok, i understand.
This ssd is compatible with my machine, according to Crucial website
https://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/pavilion-g6-1374ea/CT11286956
Its around £40 on Amazon.
What you think?

You don't need the Crucial website. Any 2.5" SATA SSD will do. But it so happens that the Crucial MX500 is a very good choice.

Aidanmc

This should fit also then, its a little cheaper and has 3 year warranty.
250gb should be plenty i think.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Internal-Performance-Desktop-Laptop-2-5-SATA3/dp/B07JKWDKVV/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=2.5%22+SATA+SSD+250gb&qid=1568244013&s=gateway&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExTkRZRERWMFBYUjNVJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMzAzNDU3M0JGNEI3MjFGWEZJQyZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNTI1NDIzMTcxMU9IVTdBQThKVSZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

EveryWhere

https://leshcatlabs.net/manual_chm/

Leaving this link here, as likely we'll need to refer to it when installing your Graphics Drivers after installing Windows 10.