Replacing HD with SSD

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Hi guys,

I was after an SSD for a while and nabbed one fairly cheap, its for my desktop replacement laptop, HP Envy 17. Now I've previously been shown how to upgrade the drive, thanks for some very helpful forum members, but my issue is my Windows 8 licence.

Id rather if possible do a complete reinstall, I'm currently running windows 8.1. How do I find out the licence that's registered to this laptop?

Cheers

Chris
 
Assuming you got Product Key then yeah, just download it stick it on a CD/USB then boot from it.

Would need to download all drivers etc again.
 
Assuming you got Product Key then yeah, just download it stick it on a CD/USB then boot from it.

Would need to download all drivers etc again.

Good stuff, I've a few days free next week, so downloading everything again isn't much issue.

It was a cheapo 120gb sandisk SSD, (450r/350w) but I'm sure ill see good
improvements over the 1tb 5400rpm drive currently in it.

Not that it was any issue, few programs took longer than I liked to load :)
 
I'd be interested to see if you could get the official .iso to download as it wouldn't accept my key. Also on a laptop.
 
I'd be interested to see if you could get the official .iso to download as it wouldn't accept my key. Also on a laptop.

I've been reading a few other threads, my original key is for windows 8, they had recommended installing a generic W8 iso, then changing the key to my own, then download the 8.1 via the market.

But ill try the 8.1 iso to start with. I'd much prefer a nice fresh install, and to get rid of the HP bloat ware.

This thread shows how it's done here
 
I believe the license key for 8 and 8.1 are different (according to technet), so will need to install 8 then update through Store.
 
That's great, it gave me the whole breakdown.

The laptop comes with a section of the HD partitioned for recovery, it didn't come with any discs or stickers on the bottom to show the code.

So if I was to download the 8.1 ISO from the MS website, I should be good to go?

Glad it worked for you :) Yep should work fine :)
 
Thought id ask another question...

I reordered the SSD last night as the standalone I had originally ordered didn't come with the caddy to make it fit in the laptop, well I hope it does now due to the price difference.

The original 1tb 5400rpm drive will become the second drive in the laptop, when I install windows 8.1 onto the SSD, a nice fresh install with all the necessary drivers, is there a way of cloning what I've done, save it on the second hard-drive and link the windows recovery option to it?

I hope I've explained that well

SSD - backup - save on second drive as the recovery option.
 
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