SSD w/o Windows?

[TwentyThree]

(excuse me for being hella new to this, but) 

I looked up a tutorial for changing the hard drive to a ssd and it looks really easy, so I figured I could just buy the drive and do it myself,  but the guy at the local shop said he'd charge me like $260 to update the drive for me because the drives they sell are 'blank' and don't come with windows or anything. Does this make sense?

What then is the cheapest and easiest way to change the hard drive (with windows??)

Thanks

[Roawoao]

Wat. The cheapest way is to clone the drive right over. You just need a USB hard drive enclosure and some SSDs come with the cloning software with it included. 

 

Windows can clone itself while it is running using shadow volume copying. $260 is crazy you do not need a new windows license if you already have one on the original HDD. There are no special drivers on the SSD and as long as you strip down the OS drive to be cloned to smaller than the SSD size your clone operation will be easy.

 

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/support/downloads.html

 

The samsung migration tool is super simple to use and has worked in the past when I transfered from an HDD to SSD in my laptop long ago.

 

Alternatively there are tons of free boot time tools you can use to clone the drive as well to the SSD from the HDD.

[Superiority Complex]

if you dont know how to reinstall windows, then cloneing is best. i would use something like Clonezilla, but that is for more advanced users. but $260 for something like that is just damn right rip off. if i could i would do it for free haha, as its simple for someone like me.

[StevenSensei]

All SSDs like all Hard Drives are blank storage when you first get them. If you are replacing the only drive in your system you will need to do a clean install of windows (recommended) or clone your existing drive to the new drive (makes a bit for bit copy of your existing drive to the new SSD). 

 

Depending on your computer you may be able to backup your important data to a thumb drive or CD and then use the recovery disks to restore your computer like new to the new drive. 

 

But the price you are being quoted almost sounds like the shop is trying to charge you for a new license for windows (which you don't need). 

[Captain_WD]

3 hours ago, TwentyThree said:

~snip~

Hey there TwentyThree,

 

A few tips from me:
- SSDs should work just like HDDs in terms of installing and managing (with a few differences).

 

- I would try avoiding the cloning procedure as cloning a HDD onto a SSD involves a good amount of risk for your data as it can corrupt the data, cause compatibility and driver issues and can lead to the SSD being recognized as a HDD by the system. 

 

- SSDs shouldn't really be defragmented as it degrades their lifespan quite a lot and if they are recognized as HDDs the system might automatically do that. 

 

- I would recommend to back everything up from the HDD, get your OS key and perform a fresh install of the OS by downloading an image of the same from the official website using your key. This would require you to also reinstall all your applications and games due to the new registry. The rest of the data should be accessible on the HDD when you connect it internally or externally. Make sure the SSD is the only drive in your system when installing the OS. 

 

- If you don't have your OS key you can get it 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.

 

Post back if you have any questions

 

Captain_WD.