Migrating Windows from HDD to SSD

[Sheenthesheeps]

Is there a safe way to do so or do I need to take it to Geek Squad or something for some official license thing?  Was considering just dual booting with ubuntu on the SSD, but I really need Microsoft Office and a few other things for classes, so it'd be nice if Windows 10 didn't chug on boot up with its 5400 RPM HDD :/.

 

So simply:

Is there a good program or method to migrate Windows to a new drive?

Also any tutorials or something to follow along with would be greatly appreciated!

Also I already have a USB to SATA cable.

[dDave64]

You should be able to do it with a drive cloning program. I’ve done this a lot with Acronis but there are a lot of programs out there that can do it, some of them free.

 

You may need to register/activate Windows again after cloning so be ready for that.

 

I recommend having a dual hard drive sled/bay to do this but you can do it with most any interface that will connect the second drive to the computer.

[Sheenthesheeps]

8 minutes ago, dDave64 said:

You should be able to do it with a drive cloning program. I’ve done this a lot with Acronis but there are a lot of programs out there that can do it, some of them free.

 

You may need to register/activate Windows again after cloning so be ready for that.

 

I recommend having a dual hard drive sled/bay to do this but you can do it with most any interface that will connect the second drive to the computer.

So would you recommend  Acronis True Image, or would I be able to get by with a free software?  (I have no problem paying, its just if they're going to do the same thing for one time use ya know ;)).  Also I hear that you can't trust what the free softwares, because they may put spyware or whatever on your computer, but I'm not sure how many horror stories are out there about that happening.  Would I need to do anything special to register/activate Windows again or is that more or less follow the on screen prompts?

[dDave64]

1 hour ago, Sheenthesheeps said:

So would you recommend  Acronis True Image, or would I be able to get by with a free software?  (I have no problem paying, its just if they're going to do the same thing for one time use ya know ;)).  Also I hear that you can't trust what the free softwares, because they may put spyware or whatever on your computer, but I'm not sure how many horror stories are out there about that happening.  Would I need to do anything special to register/activate Windows again or is that more or less follow the on screen prompts?

 

I’m sure there are free programs out there that will do it but there is a certain level of risk with any software. I don’t know of any free programs for this so hopefully someone else can recommend one.

 

I do recommend Acronis. My experience with them has been very solid. You may need to run a disk health check and repair bad sectors, defrag, etc. before Acronis will cooperate and let you clone the drive. Also be 100% sure of which drive is which when you’re selecting your source and target drives. Otherwise you end up with 2 blank drives. I for sure recommend having any software keys you need backed up and everything else backed up just in case something goes screwy. I never had this happen but you never know.

 

In the few instances where Acronis couldn’t copy a drive for me I copied by using the clone feature built into my Sabrent hard drive docking station. Cirago makes my favorite one but I don’t think you can get them anymore.