Cloning a Laptop

Sinialtstar

Hi all
I am about to buy a SSD to add a new lease of life into an old laptop.

Its currently got a 1tb mechanical drive, and it's very slow.
I can pick up a SSD around 240gb for around £40 and i plan to swap it over I know its less than the current drive but the laptop is only used for light work etc.

Please can someone recommend some free cloning software that will allow me to clone over the operating system (I'm not bothered about the recovery partitions) on a HP Pavilion.

I have googled but the advice on which one to use is very conflicting and as this is my 1st time I would like it go smoothlly
and I would like the software free as I dont intend on doing it regularly.

Many Thanks

DavidG1

Try macrium reflect free
Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free
It has the ability to autoresize partitions etc. if cloning from a larger to a smaller drive. You may be better allow Macrium to clone the entire disk rather than some partitions,. Sometimes the bootmanager expects to see all partitions and will get confused if they are not all present. The other alternative is simply to do a complete fresh install of windows and allow it to determine what partitions are needed.

Sinialtstar

Thanks, and thank you for your advise.

The laptop was a Windows 7 pre-installed, upgraded to Windows 10 as part of the free rollout. If I do a fresh install of windows 10 from, say a USB ISO. Can I simply insert the product key (if its still on the back of the laptop) and will it let me register a new install of windows 10?

DavidG1

You don’t even need to re-enter the product key, once previously activated it will automatically activate as long as you use the same version from windows media creation tool once it gets connected to the internet. During the install when it asks for a product key just skip this step and move on to the next
Download Windows 10 Disc Image (ISO File)

Sinialtstar

Thank you - that's great
instead of messing about with the existing Partitions it might be easier, as you say. just to put a fresh install on.
Thank you for your help - much appreciated

MarkE19

Word of advice before you remove the HDD - get onto the laptops support page and grab at least the network drivers. Then if Windows 10 fails to install a working network driver then at least you can manually install it and then get online to find any others.
Or make sure you have access to another working computer to get the required driver(s).

Mark.

Sinialtstar

Thank you, I have access to another working PC while I will be doing it.
I have decided that I am going to just do a fresh install onto the SSD as this one is bogged down by all HP's junk software and partitions etc etc.

Sinialtstar

Hello all
Thank you so much for all your help.
I have successfully replaced the HDD for a SSD and have a fresh copy of windows 10 running - It has added a whole new lease of life to this laptop, that was so bogged down with the HP Junk and partitions its running like a dream.

Its a old HP Pavilion G6 - This is the 1st time I have done something like this I did run into some teething problems that I easily managed to overcome. I have listed them below incase it helps someone else.

The Download of windows 10 to USB failed, I don't know why it did but it would not do it. However reformatting the USB to NTFS and it downloaded fine.The back cover of the pavilion, after unscrewing. You have to kind of snap it off where it clips into the rest of the case. it does not slide or lift of or anything. I only found this out  by watching a Youtube video with someone doing the same thing.I could not get the laptop to boot from USB even though the option was 3rd in the boot order list (HDD/CDROM/"USB Floppy Drive" (this is how its listed)) I resolved this by disabling the boot from CDROM so it was (HDD/USB)After that Windows 10 installed no problems.

Thank you all for your help - next step is installing a SSD in my desktop, cloning the OS and setting the old HDD as a secondary drive.