Ok, so, I've had an entry-level gaming laptop for about a year now. Just popped it...

[Sean Condon]

Ok, so, I've had an entry-level gaming laptop for about a year now. Just popped it open last week and saw an M.2 slot in it. The hard drive it came with was 1tb and I'm thinking of getting a 1tb m.2 ssd, and a slightly larger sata ssd. Since the laptop doesn't have a win10 key on it anywhere, my options for reinstall are a bit limited. I'm thinking of using Acronis to duplicate the hdd onto an m.2, but I dunno enough about Acronis to feel secure in the process. Will it be able to duplicate the hdd onto a potentially slightly smaller m.2? If the m.2 is slightly larger, will it adjust partition size accordingly? I know I'm longposting here, but the sound and just general slowness of the HDD in that laptop is getting on my nerves. For the record, I'm not talking about making an illegal copy. I just hate all the vibrating and clicking and general slowness, and this thing didn't come with a way to move the install to another storage device.

 

[Michael Austin]

Get a Samsung, install it and use Samsung magic (program) to direct clone to the m.2. Then pull your original hdd and set boot drive priority to m.2. Thats it, I've done it 4 or 5 times and the Samsung magic program works flawlessly and is free, but get a Samsung m.2 drive. The m.2 needs to be at least the same size as your current drive.

 

[Sean Condon]

Oh. I'm actually a fan of Samsung. I just dunno if the 1tb Samsung pro I'm considering is bigger than the HDD I have, sector-for-sector.

 

[Jason Dudek]

Don't need a windows 10 key. You can reinstall windows 10 it will activate just fine. It's tied into the UEFI bios on the motherboard.

 

[Michael Austin]

Not so much about sectors, if it's a 1tb then it's a 1tb lol

 

[Michael Austin]

For this project, that is.

 

[Sean Condon]

Hm. Don't need a key? Well, a fresh install would serve to remove all the bloatware that came with the laptop, but I think I'll put that as plan B. If 1TB is 1TB as far as Samsung is concerned, then I'll just pop the m.2 in, clone it over and get on with it. Then get rid of that nasty mechanical sata drive and replace it with a 2TB sata ssd for even more space. Prolly upgrade the RAM, too, while I got the bottom plate off.

 

[Michael Austin]

Yeah, I've literally done this exact process. First step is to install the m.2 and boot into the original drive to run Samsung magic. With what you're needing to do, 1tb is 1tb. Not in everything lol, but for this it is. I did this to a friend's pc and I've done it to two of mine. No key needed since it's the same exact is, first time you boot the m.2 you won't have a clue that it's different except for speed and no ticking

 

[Michael Austin]

Be sure and run Samsung magic on the m.2 afterwards too, it has some optimization and speed tools for Samsung SSDs

 

[Riley Branson]

You can contact microsoft help support. They can log into your pc with your approval and find out your cd key for you. You then can download a copy of windows, then install it onto your m.2 drive.

 

[Sean Condon]

See, I'm used to sector-by-sector duplication. dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb. Second drive's gotta be at least the same size in sectors for an operation like that to run, though. Hell, I've got a fresh Win7 install in a .gz file. Needs at least a 320gb hard drive to work, though. Got it for running trialware. Trial expires, dump the image back onto the drive, reinstall trialware. Long as it doesn't check the email, it's good.

 

[Chris Treubig]

If it's an entry level laptop why spend more than it's probably worth on drives? Id just get a new laptop.

 

[Paul Allen]

Acronis is very easy. Had the same situation u were in. I just kept deleting shit till I could fit the cloned drive

 

[Ste Pilling]

Windows will pick the key up from bios if it is just a drive change