Need help migrating from 1TB HDD to 250gb SSD

[Vishmister]

Hi,

 

I recently purchased a Dell Inspiron 7548 which came with a slow 2.5" WD Blue, so I purchased a Crucial MX200 to upgrade it. In order to maintain my existing Windows license (and following various guides on the internet), I have attempted in vain to clone my WD Blue onto my MX200, as when I boot the cloned OS in the laptop I am told that there are no bootable devices available. I have tried the SSD formatted in both MBR and GPT and have also tried shrinking the OS partition from 950gb (approx) to 220gb before I clone it onto the SSD using both EaseUS ToDo Backup and Acronis True Image 2014 which came bundled with the SSD. Could any of the wonderful people here guide me step-by-step through the process of getting Windows to boot from the SSD.

 

Thanks, 

Vishmister

 

PS: I don't know if this would cause an issue when cloning but because my Laptop only has one HDD/SSD enclosure, I have both disks plugged into my existing PC in order to clone them. Also, the OS on the WD Blue that i'm trying to clone is Win 10, my PC is running Win 7.

[Likwid]

Remove HDD do a fresh install of win 10 on SSD, use your microsoft account and no problems.Then plug in you HDD and copy files you need to ssd. This worked for me didn't need to activate or do anything like that.

[Vishmister]

The problem will be activating Windows 10 on the SSD, as I assume that my copy of Windows on the HDD is an OEM license for which I don't have the key

[Vishmister]

UPDATE: I spoke to Dell and they said this form of cloning would not be supported and I would require a backup media USB Stick - would this be correct?

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

Hey there Vishmister,

 

Cloning HDDs on SSDs often cause problems like this as well as it can force the SSD to be recognized as a HDD and cause further problems such as missing out TRIM and being susceptible to defragmentation. 

You can find your Windows key like this: 

Assuming you can boot your computer without any problems, you can easily create a simple VBscript that will read the value out of the registry and then translate it into the format that you need for reinstalling. 

Copy and paste the following into a Notepad window:

 

Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

MsgBox ConvertToKey(WshShell.RegRead("HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\DigitalProductId"))

 

Function ConvertToKey(Key)

Const KeyOffset = 52

i = 28

Chars = "BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789"

Do

Cur = 0

x = 14

Do

Cur = Cur * 256

Cur = Key(x + KeyOffset) + Cur

Key(x + KeyOffset) = (Cur \ 24) And 255

Cur = Cur Mod 24

x = x -1

Loop While x >= 0

i = i -1

KeyOutput = Mid(Chars, Cur + 1, 1) & KeyOutput

If (((29 - i) Mod 6) = 0) And (i <> -1) Then

i = i -1

KeyOutput = "-" & KeyOutput

End If

Loop While i >= 0

ConvertToKey = KeyOutput

End Function

 

You’ll need to use File -> Save As, change the “Save as type” to “All Files” and then name it productkey.vbs or something similar ending with the vbs extension. Once you’ve saved it, you can just double-click and the popup window will show you your product key.

 

You can contact the OS manufacturer to reissue your licence if you are unable to reinstall the OS with that key.

 

Captain_WD.

[Vishmister]

Hey there Vishmister,

Cloning HDDs on SSDs often cause problems like this as well as it can force the SSD to be recognized as a HDD and cause further problems such as missing out TRIM and being susceptible to defragmentation.

You can find your Windows key like this:

Assuming you can boot your computer without any problems, you can easily create a simple VBscript that will read the value out of the registry and then translate it into the format that you need for reinstalling.

Copy and paste the following into a Notepad window:

Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

MsgBox ConvertToKey(WshShell.RegRead("HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\DigitalProductId"))

Function ConvertToKey(Key)

Const KeyOffset = 52

i = 28

Chars = "BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789"

Do

Cur = 0

x = 14

Do

Cur = Cur * 256

Cur = Key(x + KeyOffset) + Cur

Key(x + KeyOffset) = (Cur \ 24) And 255

Cur = Cur Mod 24

x = x -1

Loop While x >= 0

i = i -1

KeyOutput = Mid(Chars, Cur + 1, 1) & KeyOutput

If (((29 - i) Mod 6) = 0) And (i <> -1) Then

i = i -1

KeyOutput = "-" & KeyOutput

End If

Loop While i >= 0

ConvertToKey = KeyOutput

End Function

You’ll need to use File -> Save As, change the “Save as type” to “All Files” and then name it productkey.vbs or something similar ending with the vbs extension. Once you’ve saved it, you can just double-click and the popup window will show you your product key.

You can contact the OS manufacturer to reissue your licence if you are unable to reinstall the OS with that key.

Captain_WD.

Thank you very much Captain_WD your help is very much appreciated! I will try this method as soon as I can.