Help upgrading to an SSD and booting from USB

jamesm182

New Member
Messages
2
Hi everyone,

I have a Lenovo ideapad U310 provided to me by work. It currently has a 500GB HD and a 32GB SSD (used for caching). It's running Windows 8.1 (originally 8 but upgraded from the store) and work have given me an SSD to install in it.

The machine does not have a disc drive so I need to boot from USB when I install the new drive. I thought this was simply a case of visiting the MS website and creating installation media, but apparently my OS and Key are OEM type and I therefore cannot do this? I spoke to Lenovo and they basically said I need to buy another retail copy of Windows 8 or buy there special recovery device. Not very impressive.

I've read somewhere about downloading a Windows 8.1 64-bit ISO and creating a boot file from that but I'm not too sure about it. Can someone help point me in the right direction?

Thanks
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
If you have made the Recovery Media for the system, it might reinstall to a clean SSD. This would have been bootable media. The Windows 8 Recovery Drive may also be able to install on the new drive if a Factory Image was copied over to the flash drive. But it will probably not set up the partitions in their original configuration.

If you had a good backup image of your system, it might be able to re-image to the new drive, depending on the image and the relative sizes of the two drives.

Some SSDs come with kits to transfer to the new drive, but I suppose your company did not send you one like that.

But whatever you do, I suggest you use the Intel Rapid Storage utility to disable Acceleration on the small SSD and give it time to unwind. You can set that back up after the new drive is functional, although you would not need it with an SSD as the primary drive. When you reinstall, make sure it is not being reinstalled on the small SSD.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Grown
    CPU
    i7 3770K
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8Z77 -v Pro, Z87-Expert
    Memory
    16 G
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA GTX 680 Classified (2)
    Hard Drives
    Kingston SSD 240 GB
If you have made the Recovery Media for the system, it might reinstall to a clean SSD. This would have been bootable media. The Windows 8 Recovery Drive may also be able to install on the new drive if a Factory Image was copied over to the flash drive. But it will probably not set up the partitions in their original configuration.

If you had a good backup image of your system, it might be able to re-image to the new drive, depending on the image and the relative sizes of the two drives.

Some SSDs come with kits to transfer to the new drive, but I suppose your company did not send you one like that.

But whatever you do, I suggest you use the Intel Rapid Storage utility to disable Acceleration on the small SSD and give it time to unwind. You can set that back up after the new drive is functional, although you would not need it with an SSD as the primary drive. When you reinstall, make sure it is not being reinstalled on the small SSD.

Thanks for the advice. I have 'One Key' installed on my system will this suffice? It's quoting an approximate image size of around 80GB so I assume it would be OK to boot from my 500GB portable HD?

Sadly the SSD did not come with a kit to transfer to the new drive. The small SSD can be removed from the laptop I believe so I suppose I could do this if it's no longer needed?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
From my experience, a One Key type operation needs the hard drive to function since the utility and the Image used is on the Hard Drive. In your situation, it might also create the external media, but I cannot confirm or deny that process would work to reinstall to a new drive.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Grown
    CPU
    i7 3770K
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8Z77 -v Pro, Z87-Expert
    Memory
    16 G
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA GTX 680 Classified (2)
    Hard Drives
    Kingston SSD 240 GB
Hi there
Why not simply image the old OS to an external device, then restore it to the NEW SSD and now simply swap the drives.

The Windows OS shouldn't need 500GB -- probably nearer 60GB. If you don't have a spare external drive simply re-partition the current 500GB to "C" and "D" and back the image up to the "D" partition. Restore from that.

Don't forget the system partition too if it exists when making the backup images. Use something like Free Macrium. These boot from a USB stick so you can boot and run the imaging program.

Cheers
jimbo
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Linux Centos 7, W8.1, W7, W2K3 Server W10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Monitor(s) Displays
    1 X LG 40 inch TV
    Hard Drives
    SSD's * 3 (Samsung 840 series) 250 GB
    2 X 3 TB sata
    5 X 1 TB sata
    Internet Speed
    0.12 GB/s (120Mb/s)
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