Advice On Replacing Laptop HDD With SSD

[mikeggratton]

Hi,

Was hoping to get some advice on replacing my laptops HDD with an SSD. The Laptop is a Compaq Presario, (not sure on exact model), and is about 4 years old. It currently has a 120gb HDD in it and is running windows Vista. It's only really used for surfing the web but currently takes an age to boot or load any programs.

I was planning on getting something along the lines of the below, then i can keep the old HDD as extra storage. Thus improving the performance without me having to spend much money.

YOUR BASKET
1 x OCZ Vertex 2E 60GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G) £29.99
1 x Akasa Noir 2.5’’ SATA and SSD Brushed Aluminium Enclosure - Black (AK-IC019) £14.99
Total : £49.97 (includes shipping : £4.16).



I haven't got a Window's disc, it’s currently on a separate partition on the HDD so not sure if/how I could do a clean install onto the SSD or whether I could just clone the current HDD? Which would be easier?

Alternatively could I just install the windows 8 consumer preview and use that until the full version is released and upgrade then?

Any advice is much appreciated

 

[GeX]

I was planning on getting something along the lines of the below, then i can keep the old HDD as extra storage. Thus improving the performance without me having to spend much money.

Why not just spend an extra tenner and get a 120GB SSD;

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-048-OC&groupid=1657&catid=2101&subcat=2103

Save faffing around with an external drive.

To do the reinstall, I'd just get hold of Vista image and then install that - use the product key of your existing install.