Question Do you have to reinstall Windows when you upgrade laptop's hdd to ssd?

[Gizmo j]

Do I need a usb flash drive to transfer the operating system?

And do I need the laptop's drivers on the flash drive along with the operating system?

 

[LTC8K6]

I would think you'd clone the HDD to the SSD and be fine?

 

[Gizmo j]

I need to take the hdd out and replace it with a ssd.

do I need the laptop's drivers on the flash drive along with the operating system?

 

[UsandThem]

I need to take the hdd out and replace it with a ssd.

do I need the laptop's drivers on the flash drive along with the operating system?

With Windows 10, nope.

 

[corkyg]

1. Do I need a usb flash drive to transfer the operating system?
2. And do I need the laptop's drivers on the flash drive along with the operating system?

1. Yes, if you have no other choice.
2. Not if you clone the HDD to the SSD. My laptop had an optical drive, and I replaced that with a second drive. I then cloned. directly from old HDD to new SSD. When done, I powered off and switched drives. It booted top the new SSD.
3. With out the internal 2nd drive, I cloned my HDD to an external HDD. Then I replaced the old HDD with the new SSD and cloned it from the external drive. It then booted as always but with the SSD instead of the HDD.
4. In both cases, drivers were taken care of by cloning.

 

[quartzz1]

don't take what I say as the 'expert' reply, but I just connected my 500GB SSD (replacing 500GB HDD) via a USB-to-SATA cable, ran macrium reflect, cloned Windows 7, then powered down and replaced the drive. I had to make sure to disable scheduled defrag. Also ran Samsung's software to make sure TRIM was enabled.

 

[corkyg]

Short answer - no! I just cloned the HDD to the SSD, then removed the HDD and put the SSD in its place and life went on normally. I then put the HDD away as an emergency backup.

 

[Furious_Styles]

Short answer - no! I just cloned the HDD to the SSD, then removed the HDD and put the SSD in its place and life went on normally. I then put the HDD away as an emergency backup.

Just another reminder to shutdown, then remove the old hdd before powering back up, otherwise you will screw up your boot sector and torpedo the entire job.

 

[maxc]

Hello,
I am replacing the oriignal SSD M2 SATA 512GB
with a
Samsung EVO plus M2 NVMe 2TB
in a Lenovo Thinkpad T460s with windows7 sp1.
Connected the new SSD thorugh a USB holder,
cloning the original SSD operating system partition (C with windows7, using
Samsung Data Migration software
(NB: I run it on the same windows7 that I am cloning),
The cloning ends successfully.
When I insert the new SSD instead of the old SSD and boot,
i see the page with windows 7 logo loading for 1-2 seconds,
but then the blue screen.
I tried also with
Norton Ghost booting form a bootable USB key with winPE, same problem.
Any special setting to apply? in the BIOS maybe?
Or different procedure for cloning?
( I am not expert)
Thank you

 

[Billy Tallis]

Hello,
I am replacing the oriignal SSD M2 SATA 512GB
with a
Samsung EVO plus M2 NVMe 2TB
in a Lenovo Thinkpad T460s with windows7 sp1.
Connected the new SSD thorugh a USB holder,
cloning the original SSD operating system partition (C with windows7, using
Samsung Data Migration software
(NB: I run it on the same windows7 that I am cloning),
The cloning ends successfully.
When I insert the new SSD instead of the old SSD and boot,
i see the page with windows 7 logo loading for 1-2 seconds,
but then the blue screen.
I tried also with
Norton Ghost booting form a bootable USB key with winPE, same problem.
Any special setting to apply? in the BIOS maybe?
Or different procedure for cloning?
( I am not expert)
Thank you

When you clone a Windows installation from a SATA drive to a NVMe SSD, you should let it fail to boot and reboot automatically several times in a row, after which it will offer you the menu that gives you the option to boot into safe mode. After Windows has successfully booted into safe mode once, you can reboot and everything will work fine. This is because booting into safe mode forces Windows to re-detect hardware, and it'll notice that the boot volume is on a NVMe device rather than a SATA device.

It's stupid and silly, but that's Windows.

 

[Shmee]

I believe with win 7 you may need to load a driver and / or hotfix for NVMe drives.

 

[jitendrad]

Not, if you clone the HDD to SSD.

 

[maxc]

don't take what I say as the 'expert' reply, but I just connected my 500GB SSD (replacing 500GB HDD) via a USB-to-SATA cable, ran macrium reflect, cloned Windows 7, then powered down and replaced the drive. I had to make sure to disable scheduled defrag. Also ran Samsung's software to make sure TRIM was enabled.

Hi Quartz, I am trying to do something similar. I do not have defrag scheduled, but I do not know what is TRIM ?

 

[maxc]

When you clone a Windows installation from a SATA drive to a NVMe SSD, you should let it fail to boot and reboot automatically several times in a row, after which it will offer you the menu that gives you the option to boot into safe mode. After Windows has successfully booted into safe mode once, you can reboot and everything will work fine. This is because booting into safe mode forces Windows to re-detect hardware, and it'll notice that the boot volume is on a NVMe device rather than a SATA device.

It's stupid and silly, but that's Windows.

Thank you very much. I will try it this weekend. Since the disk will be fit in the same M2 connector and it is anyway a SSD I do not need to enter the BIOS to change the boot unit, or any other parameter, do I ?

 

[maxc]

When you clone a Windows installation from a SATA drive to a NVMe SSD, you should let it fail to boot and reboot automatically several times in a row, after which it will offer you the menu that gives you the option to boot into safe mode. After Windows has successfully booted into safe mode once, you can reboot and everything will work fine. This is because booting into safe mode forces Windows to re-detect hardware, and it'll notice that the boot volume is on a NVMe device rather than a SATA device.

It's stupid and silly, but that's Windows.

Hello Billy,
I tried it yesterday night.
I let windows 7 fail for several times in the hope to see the option to log in safe mode.
I let it restart at least 20 times, but never give me the option to start safe mode.
Any suggestion ?
The computer can see the new disk installed in place of the original one. At the start on the black screen appears the name of the new SSD 2TB. Then appears the windows 7 logo trying to load win 7, but it stops after a few seconds with the blue screen.
PS: I cloned the partition C (containing win 7pro sp1 x64 and the programs), with Samsuing Data Migration, selecting it as Source, target the new disk (connected externally via USB using theNVMe M2 holder. I did not clone the system partion and the data partition.

Before to do the cloning do i need to do any special setting/formatting ?
Only formatting or also creating a system partion or giving any special settings to the new SSD?
If it shuld be done, can you suggest the best way to do the formatting (which free software tool) and eventually which other settings ?

(To clone I used Samsuing Data Migration since both the old SDD (M2 SATA 512GB) and the new one (Samsung V-Nand 970 EVO PLUS 2TB NVMe) are Samsung)

Thank you in advance.