Migrating data from stock laptop HDD to SSD -**UPDATED**

[dmoney1980]

Long story short - Bought a Lenovo laptop for my dad. Stock 750GB HDD is painfully slow (I'm all SSD here, not looking back) and I have a 128gb SSD I would like to replace it with.
I already uninstalled the bloatware that came with windows.

What is my best option?

a) use a cloning software (like the Ease Us free partition master tool ) and copy everything to the smaller SSD

b) install the SSD and use my windows 7 x64 homepremium dvd to do a clean install, then activate using the license key provided on the laptop (would that even work?)

c)....????

thanks

update: I installed the SSD and did a clean install with my Win7 dvd and used the serial # provided by lenovo. Everything works great, whole process took 15 minutes. I have to say this thing flies! I never installed an SSD in a laptop, and it's crazy quiet / fast. The SSD isn't even a top performer. Its the 128GB Kingston v200 I picked up a month ago for $55.

 

[kleinkinstein]

Clean install rules.

 

[dmoney1980]

Clean install rules.

will the Lenovo key work if I use my OEM disc for the install?

 

[Coup27]

b) install the SSD and use my windows 7 x64 homepremium dvd to do a clean install, then activate using the license key provided on the laptop (would that even work?)

You will need a Windows 7 OEM disc for this. So yes to post #3. I repair peoples laptops all the time and in my CD wallet I have OEM discs for every version of XP and 7. I install with one of those discs and use the licence key on the bottom. Its a perfectly legal way of reinstalling an OEM OS, and often it is actually the only way.

Edit: If you are using an OEM disc from someone like Dell then they already slip-streamed your OEM licence key into the disc so it may install with your key and you'll have to change it after. The OEM discs I have are all "blank" in that regard and have no licence key, regional or language settings slip-streamed into them.

 

[dmoney1980]

thanks Coup27 - the oem disc I use is a disc I purchased from newegg

 

[corkyg]

What model of Lenovo? I recently swapped my Seagate Momenetus XT hybrid drive for Samsun 830 256GB SSD on my Lenovo T510. It was never painfully slow, especially with the XT drive. The SSD is a bit faster, but the delta is not huge.

For a Lenovo laptop, I don't agree that a clean install rules. That is somewhat of a cop out. Get rid of all boatware, but, the Lenovo blue button ware is not bloatware. It does a lot of things, and a clean install means a lot more work on your part to replace it. Your dad will appreciate having it.

I would optimize the system using the HDD. Really clean it up and get it humming. I would then clone the HDD proportionally to the SSD, boot up and go from there. You can always do a clean install, but, you may lose a lot of functions and features in the process.

 

[sm625]

I would do clean install,unless I was going to lose more than an hour reinstalling everything. Sometimes it can take hours or days to work around their bullcrap system and restore partitions to get a cloning operation to complete properly. Other times it is a painless 7 minute job. Shrug.

 

[Coup27]

I agree with half of what you say corkgy. I owned a T60 for a while and there are a lot of essential ThinkVantage etc programs which you need. But simply uninstalling the trials of various AV programs, office suits, audio or movie players, games, or whatever other cack is on there still leaves behind a lot of junk on the system.

I did a trial once of de-bloating a factory install and the running processes was still far higher than I could account for. I redid the install and installed all the same OEM programs as I left on and the running processes were much lower.

It is a long job though to install a modern ThinkPad from scratch with all the ThinkVanage programs and system utilities but it's worth it IMO, but that depends how literate you are to do it. I can do a format blindfolded these days.

 

[tweakboy]

Make a image with windows image backup. put image on external. then with repair CD boot up and restore your windows image onto your SSD. gl

 

[dmoney1980]

I'll try the clean install fist since thats the easier to start with