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I have a lenovo T530 laptop. It currently has 2 SSDs: one in the easily accessible CD/DVD/HD bay, and one somewhere else inside the case which has the operating system installed.

"My computer" reports that the Operating system SSD is 108GB capacity, while the other SSD is 111 GB capacity. Both of the harddrives are filling up and it's a struggle and a juggling act to keep a little free space available.

I had a geeze at the prices of SSDs these days and was delighted to discover that they have come down in price dramatically since I last was shopping around. I would like to upgrade the operating system SSD so that it has between roughly 0.5TB and 1TB space.

Now, my question is: How can I move my operating system to the new harddrive? Is there some software that can mirror the entire contents of my current Operating system harddrive over to the new one? or do I have to completely start from scratch, reinstall windows etc? If the latter, I can't afford to pay for a new windows 10 license, so how would I go about transferring my existing license over to the new install?

I'm not opposed to just starting with a fresh install, but as mentioned, I can't afford a new windows 10 license. So how would I go about transferring my existing license over to the new hard drive?

edit: I should note that my laptop originally came with windows 7 installed, and I upgraded to windows 10 for free back in 2016.

edit: this isn't a duplicate. The linked question has absolutely nothing to do with this question

edit: as mentioned, I am open to a fresh install, but my worry is that i will be barred from activating the operating system and won't be able to transfer my license. I read on another question that these days windows will autoactivate after installation if it recognises your motherboard. Can someone confirm this or provide more information?

TheIronKnuckle
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You can certainly move the hard drives to bigger ones as is, this is called cloning.

Some SSDs will come with their own (or a license for a) Cloning Software. Otherwise, you can use a free one like Macrium Reflect Free.

One thing that you will need to mess around a bit (not the complete simplest thing but also not very complicated) is while doing the clone to resize the partition to fill the whole bigger drive (otherwise it is going to be a separate partition.)

You can check out this full guide on How to clone your PC hard drive using Macrium Reflect with screenshots, so you can see what it takes.

In regards to your edit with the question about a clean install.

You can very easily create a Windows 10 installation media using the official media creation tool.

It should automatically activate if the only change is the hard drive. (Though no one will be able to assure it for you since there are instances that people have difficulties. But usually, after a call with Microsoft, it is always activated. They even have a page about Reactivating Windows 10 after a hardware change)

Yisroel Tech
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