Clone Hd or reinstall

guil

Hi, I've ordered an SSD for an old laptop and there is nothing on it important. would cloning the HD or just reinstall windows from a creation tool be the best way?

RobertFoster

I'd go for the clean install. It's easier and less faffing about than with cloning. There's less cruft built up using Windows 10 compared to older OSs, but it's still nice to go in fresh.

Extract what files you need from the old drive and the Windows key if you need it. You don't have to wipe it straight away, it can remain a backup image until you're completely happy with the new install.

guil

Seen something about the Uefi storing the windows key before

advertsfox

guil wrote: »

Seen something about the Uefi storing the windows key before

If it was pre activated in this way, you can extract the key for activation first by doing this:

- Press Windows key + X
- Click Command Prompt (Admin)
- At the command prompt, type:

wmic path SoftwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey

This will reveal the product key (copy / paste for later).

Inquitus

RobertFoster wrote: »

I'd go for the clean install. It's easier and less faffing about than with cloning. There's less cruft built up using Windows 10 compared to older OSs, but it's still nice to go in fresh.

Extract what files you need from the old drive and the Windows key if you need it. You don't have to wipe it straight away, it can remain a backup image until you're completely happy with the new install.

I concur with this fine gentleman, a clean install will do wonders for your machine and you can simply connect the other drive as storage, copy over what you want to retain to your new SSD and then re-format the old drive to be your new storage drive.

Philipx

Did this on a laptop & my desktop a couple of weeks ago.

Usb with Media Creation Tool for fresh install of Win 10.

If you install the same version as previously installed on the machine (Win 10 Home or Pro or whatever) it should automatically activate when you connect to the internet.