New Windows 8 laptop, swapping drive

[Scott Salisbury]

Hey all,

My parents have just bought themselves a new laptop with Windows 8 preinstalled.

I have a spare 128GB SSD drive that I would like to donate to them to replace their 500GB 5400RPM drive (as they would appreciate the speed over space).

What options do I have in regards to reinstalling Windows 8 that came with the laptop on the new drive? Will this even be possible without buying another Windows 8 license?

Thanks,
Scott.

 

[ajf]

What make is it?
i would expect it to come with either recovery media or a recovery partition and the ability to create media from that. If so just create the media, swap the disks and boot from the optical drive.

If you also have another Windows 8 disk of the same version you can also use that and it will just avtivate using the key for the new laptop.
One advantage of doing it this way is it is a clean install without all the rubbish the recovery media will probably also install.

This link may also be helpful.
http://arstechnica.com/information-...-guide-to-reinstalling-windows-8-on-a-new-pc/

 

[Scott Salisbury]

Amazing reply, thanks so much!

It's an Acer (Aspire E1) laptop, nice piece of kit for the money, shame about the crapware. I've been uninstalling junk software for over an hour and I'm very bored of it now, I'd rather do a fresh install and not use the recovery partition.

Thanks for the link!

Scott.

 

[Credo]

Another option would be to attach the SSD to your parent's laptop via a caddy, and clone their 5400 rpm drive to the SSD, then swap. Considering this for my daugter's new laptop...

 

[Mitzy]

Prepare for pain my friend.

 

[theheyes]

Prepare for pain my friend.

That's unsubstantiated. You tried to use the wrong media.

I recommend reading that Ars guide.

 

[Mitzy]

That's unsubstantiated. You tried to use the wrong media.

I recommend reading that Ars guide.

We'll see.