Reinstalling Windows 10 on a new drive.

[Michaeljcox24]

- About 12 months ago I put a 64GB SSD in the missis desktop, installed Win 7 from DVD and then did the free Win 10 upgrade.

- We're at the stage now though where there's 5GB free space and we can't even do the anniversary update. Barely anything is on the drive other than Win 10 and a couple of essential programs.

- Plan is to get a 256GB SSD when Feb rolls round.

- How do I install Win 10 on it, do I have to buy a new copy?

Thanks.

 

[Orcvader]

The license is linked to the board of the laptop, so just download the 10 ISO from the Microsoft tool and make a bootable USB/disk and install from fresh. When it asks for the product key just skip it, it'll reactivate itself when it connects to the internet.

 

[TaKeN]

Put new drive in PC, install Windows 10 from USB, Skip the key entry and it should be fine and dandy from there on IIRC..

 

[SimonC]

Put new drive in PC, install Windows 10 from USB, Skip the key entry and it should be fine and dandy from there on IIRC..

+1

I put a SSD in my mums laptop, installed windows 10 from usb, skipped the key and it activated itself once in windows.

Even if you have to call up microsoft to activate, I've done this a few times with windows 7, it's super easy and only takes a few minutes.

 

[Rabtech]

Plug in the new SSD via a USB to SATA adapter, use Macrium reflect to clone it then install the SSD and remove the old drive. You can do a clean install but it isn't 100% necessary.

 

[Kurgen]

can you clone the drive to a smaller one as long as it has the free space.

ie 160gb HDD --> 120GB SSD

 

[ED209]

as others said, stuck the SSD in and install from USB, if it asks for a key skip and then it will activate once online as its done by hardware ID (mobo)

you can use the W10 creation tool to do everything and your then good to go

 

[Kurgen]

sorry I totally miss posted , i searched macrium in the forums.. wanted to know if i can clone using macrium for a windows 7 pc, from a 160gb hdd to 120gb ssd so i don't have to reinstall apps. I'm pretty sure its only about 60gb used on the HDD