Laptop HDD/SSD setup

[Frank]

Hello!
I plan on replacing my laptop's DVD drive with a HDD. I would actually put a new 128Gb SSD in the original HDD slot, and move that old 1Tb HDD to the empty dvd space (that will have a converter caddy).
I would like to have my OS (Win. 8.1) and any other "important stuff" moved to the SSD, but keep all of the remaining documents on my 1Tb HDD (it would become a "data drive").

How can I accomplish this? Is it possible to only move the OS from the HDD to the SSD?

Thank you!

[HaQue]

if possible, I would clone your hard drive first. Or at least backup everything that is important. May people make mistakes or something doesn't work out and then.. Sad Face. Happens to the best of us.

There are migration tools available for SSDs, maybe checkout the product page of your chosen SSD, or the vendor, or choose an SSD that has these tools.

Read everything carefully and be absolutely sure what you are doing before you do it. If possible just copy to your SSD, don't move or delete until you are fine with the setup.

You should be able to do what you want, but I tend to install fresh whenever changing hard disks.

[Frank]

Ok thanks, that helps! I will start with a fresh install of windows. Speaking of wich, can I reuse my product key or do I have to buy another one? And I guess i'll have to reinstall all of the drivers, right? Finally, is there a way to remove the OS from the HDD to only have the data?

Thanks again in advance!

[falther]

You could/should do the fresh installation with the recovery DVD´s which usually can be created out of the Windows system. Usually one is asked a few times after starting a pc or laptop the first time to create that
recovery DVD´s for later - if necessary. And unfortunately - most users ignore that advice.

Never the less - if this system was sold with a preinstalled Windows 8.x you should still be able to start that procedure to burn these DVD´s. Then it shouldnt be a problem to create a fesh installation on the new SSD.

The license code is stored (again when Windows is shipped preinstalled) in the pc / laptop - you dont have to care about that in this case - Windows will automatically be activated once the unit is connected to Internet.

If you baught Windows seperately - certainly you can use the license again, as long its installed on one system only.

***
As advised with a previos answer - I also would suggest to produce a clone of the 1TB hdd.
Price is so low for such 2,5" drives, that I would connect the new one into the caddy, create
one or two partitions (2x 500gb) on it and put the old 1TB into a USB 2,5" case. Then you
can copy your data back into the laptop onto the new hdd - and have a backup of your data
too.

+++

[Frank]

Thank you! Will do!

[Frank]

Just one last thing... Between a Sandisk SDSSDP-128G-G25 and a Kingston SV300S37A/120G, wich one should I get? Does anybody have some personal experience with any one of those drives?

[LarrySabo]

https://www.paragon-software.com/techno ... OS-to-SSD/

[Frank]

Ok, but does anyone have some personal experience with any one of the drives mentioned above?

[LarrySabo]

Ok, but does anyone have some personal experience with any one of the drives mentioned above?

I used the program I cited to move my Win7 32-bit system to a 256GB AData SSD after trying quite a number of other programs that claimed to be able to do so, but couldn't. The Paragon program worked perfectly for me; I use it to migrate all my customer's drives to SSD when the need arises.

[Frank]

I used the program I cited to move my Win7 32-bit system to a 256GB AData SSD after trying quite a number of other programs that claimed to be able to do so, but couldn't. The Paragon program worked perfectly for me; I use it to migrate all my customer's drives to SSD when the need arises.

I tried using it, but how do you select only the OS? Do you select the Windows folder from the main HDD?

[LarrySabo]

I don't recall, off hand. It was quite a while ago that I used it. If it doesn't offer the option to copy just the OS partition, then clone the drive to another HDD and delete the non-OS partitions from it, then use that as the source drive. I kept my OS partition on the SSD the same size as on the HDD, so I can from time to time clone the SSD's OS partition back to the HDD. That way, I can boot into the HDD should the SSD fail and I'd still be fairly current. I also make regular images of the SSD to an external drive for the same reason.

[HaQue]

For systems at an education site I support, commonly the Hard disks supplied are small, even when markets were supplying 500GB as standard for many months, we were getting 160GB or 320GB. I make the OS partition 80GB on all systems so it never matters what needed to be imaged and to where, I always know it will fit. Plus I do a lot over the network so it isn't a huge amount to transfer around. This same principle works well at home and makes backing up the image easier. Feasible to have a weekly round of images as backups. Just remember to never leave your backup drives mapped as network drives as cryptolocker variants will also stuff up your backups!

[Frank]

I have installed my new SSD into my laptop. I finally chose a samsung 850 Evo, which works extremely well. But now I have a big problem... Let me explain: When I got my HDD out of the laptop, I immediately placed it into an external case. This case was originally a WD external drive, that had no drive in it. So, when I plugged it in, everything worked fine; I could read my data and everything. That is until yesterday, when I decided to run windows' disk repair utility because it said the disk had problems and had to be repaired (I never run that, but for some reason I did yesterday). When I did the latter, it said that it was unable to fix the drive. The drive was now unreadable. I could not open it, it sais access denied. So I unblocked it by modifying the security parameters, only to find that ALL of my data was corrupted. I tried to recover it with Wondershare data recovery (full version), but that did nothing. Since the data on that drive was not THAT important, I decided to reformat the drive through the disk utility (I reformatted the main partition).

Here's the problem: Now, whenever I put new files onto the drive, they all immediately become corrupted.

What do I do?

[Frank]

Oh and by the way the old HDD (that is now not working well) is a HGST Travelstar 5K1000 (hts541010A9E680).

[falther]

Besides the infos from my collegues to follow my post:

1. I would have used a new SATA to USB case or adapter instead of an old (used)
WD case (which might have had or cause(d) the issue).

Costs aprox. $ 15,-

2. I just reread my post of April 3rd:
quote//
As advised with a previos answer - I also would suggest to produce a clone
of the 1TB hdd....
//unquote

Costs aprox. $ 60,- or even less

3. Whatever you want to start - at first get rid of the WD case
buy instantly an other new one
then repartition + reformat that drive in that new USB casing
and only then start anything else

4. to test your old drive - you could then install hdsentinel (freeware)
to see the old drives condition
- but really, the point 3 is definitely worth it - dont bypass it.

++

[Frank]

Ok I will go buy a new case later today! I will try to format and repartition the HDD. To format it, should I do a quick or a regular format? Oh and I downloaded your program, but it says that everything is ok and functioning properly... Which is not the case...