OS Transfer from HDD to SSD

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I'm thinking of buying a refurbished desktop with Win10 Pro on it that has a 1 TB hard drive. I'd like to have a SSD for the OS, and use the 1 TB hard drive as a 2nd drive for storing my photos, movies, miscellaneous files, etc.

Can I make a mirror image of the HDD and put it on a new SSD? What's the easiest procedure to do that so I could boot up and run Windows off the SSD?

Once that's done, I would clean/reformat the HDD and use it as the secondary D: drive.
 
I've always just used linux and used dd directly from the old disk to the new disk as long as the new disk is the same size or larger, although on systems using efi boot, I think I've had to run the windows installer to use the recovery console to reinstall the bootmanager before
 
There's a few imaging products out there, a few that cost money and a few free ones. I've used Easus before. Worked fine for me.
 
Samsung has free software that can clone a drive…

I recommend the Samsung 870 EVO from NewEgg…

Just did this to my personal laptop, no problems…

 
I presume you want to clone the HDD because you won't have a Windows key for this refurbished machine?
If so, you don't need to as windows activation is tied to the motherboard in Win10. Just fire up the machine for the first time, connect to the internet and verify that windows 10 is activated. If it is, you can simply install a fresh version to any drive you want and it will self activate without issues.
 
I presume you want to clone the HDD because you won't have a Windows key for this refurbished machine?
If so, you don't need to as windows activation is tied to the motherboard in Win10. Just fire up the machine for the first time, connect to the internet and verify that windows 10 is activated. If it is, you can simply install a fresh version to any drive you want and it will self activate without issues.
Yup, this. While many SSD manufacturers ship products like Acronis with the SSD, a fresh install is typically best if you aren't trying to preserve anything and 10 registers the BIOS ID with Microsoft, so no need to worry about activation with a fresh install.
 
Forget cloning it. Do a clean install of Windows 10 on the new SSD.


Unless the HDD has a lot of pre-installed programs or something on it you want to keep, there's no real reason to transfer it over.
 
I presume you want to clone the HDD because you won't have a Windows key for this refurbished machine?
If so, you don't need to as windows activation is tied to the motherboard in Win10. Just fire up the machine for the first time, connect to the internet and verify that windows 10 is activated. If it is, you can simply install a fresh version to any drive you want and it will self activate without issues.
I think the Windows 10 on the refurbished machine would be a licensed copy of Win10 with a key. The business selling their refurbished computers are all loaded with Win10 Pro and Microsoft Office 2019 Home & School. I would assume they wouldn't be loading a non-licensed copy of Win10. These refurbished computers never came with Win10 when they were new, so the refurbish business probably did an software upgrade using the existing software key that came on the machines when new (?).

The main reason I was thinking of cloning the HDD to a SSD was to retain the Office 2019 Home & School software. If I just buy a new SSD and load a fresh copy of Win10 (which I could probably do because the existing Win10 on the HDD would have a license key), then I wouldn't have the Office 2019 Home & School. Maybe there's a license key for that too so I could reload that too? ... I don't really know.
 
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Unless the HDD has a lot of pre-installed programs or something on it you want to keep, there's no real reason to transfer it over.
I think the HDD would only have Win10 Pro and Microsoft Office 2019 Home & School. I would like to keep the Office software.
 
I think the Windows 10 on the refurbished machine would be a licensed copy of Win10 with a key. The business selling their refurbished computers are all loaded with Win10 Pro and Microsoft Office 2019 Home & School. I would assume they wouldn't be loading a non-licensed copy of Win10. These refurbished computers never came with Win10 when they were new, so the refurbish business probably did an software upgrade using the existing software key that came on the machines when new (?).

The main reason I was thinking of cloning the HDD to a SSD was to retain the Office 2019 Home & School software. If I just buy a new SSD and load a fresh copy of Win10 (which I could probably do because the existing Win10 on the HDD would have a license key), then I wouldn't have the Office 2019 Home & School. Maybe there's a license key for that too so I could reload that too? ... I don't really know.

Yes, win10 and Office licenses should be legitimate and activated, but I would double check to be sure.

As far as office 2019, I don't have much experience as I'm still using 2010 version I got from my old work for like $10.
Here is a way to make a copy of the activation, it's the Step 3. However I don't know if you will be able to download the same version for your new SSD.
Make Office Key Backup

The main idea of installing the OS fresh is that you really don't know what kind of software the refurbishing company installed. At best it could be nothing or a bunch of bloatware, at worst however, it could be spyware or other tracking apps. A fresh install will ensure nothing malicious is installed.

I would still give the fresh install a shot, just don't wipe your HDD and disconnect it from the system before doing anything to avoid a potential error during installation (like selecting the wrong drive). You can always clone it later to your SSD.
 
Yes, win10 and Office licenses should be legitimate and activated, but I would double check to be sure.

As far as office 2019, I don't have much experience as I'm still using 2010 version I got from my old work for like $10.
Here is a way to make a copy of the activation, it's the Step 3. However I don't know if you will be able to download the same version for your new SSD.
Make Office Key Backup

The main idea of installing the OS fresh is that you really don't know what kind of software the refurbishing company installed. At best it could be nothing or a bunch of bloatware, at worst however, it could be spyware or other tracking apps. A fresh install will ensure nothing malicious is installed.

I would still give the fresh install a shot, just don't wipe your HDD and disconnect it from the system before doing anything to avoid a potential error during installation (like selecting the wrong drive). You can always clone it later to your SSD.
Thanks for the info. I know someone who has bought two computers from this refurbished computer business, and the Windows OS is bare bones with not added software or bloatware added. In this case, they also load the Office 2019 software. I wouldn't be concerned about what they load for software.
 
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