Wanting to Install Win10 on an SSD

[Septimus]

Hello,

I am wanting to replace the 5400RPM potato HDD in my mom's all-in-one desktop, but considering she is quite particular and gets freaked out when anything is even slightly out of place on her computer, I'm trying to figure out a way that I can install Windows 10 on an SSD I have and have it ready to go to plug into her system, set up with programs and all.

I have a working desktop with multiple drives in it so I was wondering if I would be able to remove one of the drives in my system, and plug in the new SSD in it's place, onto which I would then install Windows 10. However, this isn't possible considering that only one drive (the one that is going to have the OS on it) should be plugged in during the installation, right?

Since that wouldn't work, would I be able to just unplug all of the drives in my system and then plug the SSD into one of the SATA ports on my motherboard, to then install Windows 10? Upon plugging in my drives again, would I encounter any issues/changes? Is this the best method for doing this?

[LogicalDrm]

Are you trying to clone original drive or do fresh install? For latter it's just best that you take that AIO for a day, install directly onto it, install all software, paste in some old settings and files. You can install Win10 on another PC and it should work fine when drive is moved to new PC. However, there's always possibility that drivers cause issues. Which means that no one can promise it will be smooth operation.

[Septimus]

1 hour ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

Are you trying to clone original drive or do fresh install? For latter it's just best that you take that AIO for a day, install directly onto it, install all software, paste in some old settings and files. You can install Win10 on another PC and it should work fine when drive is moved to new PC. However, there's always possibility that drivers cause issues. Which means that no one can promise it will be smooth operation.

Okay,  thanks for the input. If I wanted to clone the drive, would you recommend putting both the old hard drive in my system as well as the new SSD and cloning them using Acronis True Image?

[LogicalDrm]

2 hours ago, Septimus said:

Okay,  thanks for the input. If I wanted to clone the drive, would you recommend putting both the old hard drive in my system as well as the new SSD and cloning them using Acronis True Image?

For cloning or migrating both drives need to be in same system. Doesn't matter where they are, you just can't be booted on the one being cloned. For cloning you need to have same or bigger drive than original. Otherwise its migrating where you leave out some files to fit just OS. I haven't done either for OS drive. With migrating there's always chance that something goes wrong while cloning should just work.

[Septimus]

9 hours ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

For cloning or migrating both drives need to be in same system. Doesn't matter where they are, you just can't be booted on the one being cloned. For cloning you need to have same or bigger drive than original. Otherwise its migrating where you leave out some files to fit just OS. I haven't done either for OS drive. With migrating there's always chance that something goes wrong while cloning should just work.

Alright, thanks man!