Moving OS to SSD

Ssayer

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I've searched and read enough on doing this (presuming the bios isn't locked?) to overload me. I THINK I'll go with this one...

How to Migrate Windows 10 to SSD(Solid State Disk) - EaseUS

Before I jump (it won't be here until later in the upcoming week), I figured I'd ask the knowledgeable people here for their take...

I have a computer coming that I bought off of eBay. it has a "GENUINE copy of Microsoft Windows 10 Professional 64 BIT on the machine and have attached a NEW Certificate of Authenticity from Microsoft to the system" on it's 750GB HD. I keep hearing how the best place to have the OS is on an SSD. What is the best/correct/whatever way to move the OS to an SSD without having unnecessary hassles?


(Maybe it's already been discussed here and I'm not searching properly?)
 
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fenderman

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I've searched and read enough on doing this (presuming the bios isn't locked?) to overload me. I THINK I'll go with this one...

How to Migrate Windows 10 to SSD(Solid State Disk) - EaseUS

Before I jump (it won't be here until later in the upcoming week), I figured I'd ask the knowledgeable people here for their take...

I have a computer coming that I bought off of eBay. it has a "GENUINE copy of Microsoft Windows 10 Professional 64 BIT on the machine and have attached a NEW Certificate of Authenticity from Microsoft to the system" on it's 750GB HD. I keep hearing how the best place to have the OS is on an SSD. What is the best/correct/whatever way to move the OS to an SSD without having unnecessary hassles?


(Maybe it's already been discussed here and I'm not searching properly?)
Download the media creation tool from MS onto a usb drive. Perform a clean installation of windows. No key needed if windows has be activated on that machine.
 

Ssayer

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One thing that for some reason I'm haziest on... Since it's used/refurbished/whatever. I'd like to burn it in for a couple of days before I mess with anything. Can I run it for a couple of days off of the drive that comes with it, and then (presuming all is well), perform the clean install on to the SSD without having a problem with activation?
 

fenderman

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One thing that for some reason I'm haziest on... Since it's used/refurbished/whatever. I'd like to burn it in for a couple of days before I mess with anything. Can I run it for a couple of days off of the drive that comes with it, and then (presuming all is well), perform the clean install on to the SSD without having a problem with activation?
Yes. Though you may as well install the ssd and test that way. If there is a problem, just remove the ssd.
 

J Sigmo

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I've got three of the PCs @fenderman suggested on Ebay coming. These have no HDDs installed at all, but they do have some sort of Win10 pro authorizations for each, so presumably they, at one time, had Win 10 Pro installed, but on now-removed drives. I'll be doing clean installs using the media creation tool for all of these, onto SSDs that I will probably order today.

I'm looking forward to that going smoothly.

The two Ebay machines I got a while back did already have their Win 10 OSs already installed. The refurbisher had done clean installs of the OS on their HDDs, so they fired up initially as if I was the first owner, and that went perfectly on both of them. So I figure after using the media creation tool to load Win10 onto these three new ones, they'll launch exactly the same way.

But for both of these earlier PCs, they did not have SSDs in them to start. Instead they both came with standard rotating HDDs with the OS in place. So later, when I decided to install SSDs for their "C" drives, I had to transfer everything, including programs and files that I had already installed on their conventional drives to the new SSDs.

I did that using a program called "Macrium Reflect", which I've used before to let me replace boot drives, and it worked perfectly. I used an external (USB) drive case to hold the new SSDs as I made the drive images, and then just swapped in the imaged SSDs. And they just took off and ran immediately with no glitches or surprises.

Those SSDs improved the program-launch speeds, boot-up speeds, and operating speeds of Photoshop, etc, tremendously. Best money I ever spent on PC upgrading.

So Input an SSD in a very old, slow, lame laptop, too, and despite my presumption that most of that PC's slowness was likely its processor and RAM, the SSD improved its performance tremendously as well.

As @fenderman recommend, I, too, highly recommend that you put your SSD in before using the media creation tool. That way, doing your initial set-up of Windows and then doing the burn-in will be on that SSD. So anything you do add or install right from the start, and your set-up of Windows, will already be on the SSD, and that will save you a bit of extra work.
 
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