I have a problem here which I couldn't find an answer to. If anyone knows of a thread that solves this problem, just push me in the right direction, thank you.
My problem is this: I currently have a 1TB Seagate HDD in my computer running Win10x64. I plan to get an SSD soon, so that I can boot faster and access some programs quickly (Word, Firefox, etc.) My problem is that I don't want to uninstall all my programs off the 1TB HDD and move the resulting data to the SSD and do a full re-install of everything. I also don't have any external HDD on hand to move all unnecessary files to while I move. Is there a way to move only the OS partition to the SSD? Will my installed programs and games work?
There are ways to clone a partition to an SSD. Maybe have a look into gparted, which lets you create a live usb stick to do this. Some SSDs vendors do also offer software to do this from within windows (from your partition on the HDD).
If your SDD is 1TB, you can simply boot from CD/USB Stick and clone the drive So if windows doesn't like that (because it does anything "secure") you can switch back to HDD and look for another option.
But as the others said, best would be a fresh install. Most programs work without install, just execute the files from HDD afterwards
OK, I'll probably do a fresh install of win10 on the ssd and delete the system partition on the HDD afterwards, right? And the programs will work ok? I'd like to go 60GB or even 30GB if possible, just for the OS and Office
The above is great, as long as you did actually partition your hdd with a seperate partition for the OS already. If it's just one partition, the fresh install really the best option. I'd recommend unplugging the hdd while you install, as windows seems to monkey about with where it puts the boot info, then when you plug in the hdd, remember to tell your bios to boot from the ssd :-)
If you are looking into a Samsung SSD. If i´m right samsung comes with a migration tool for their drives that can do this stuff. But of course there are also other tools that can do the same thing with any brand ssd.
OK, about a month later, I've got new development:
I brought my HDD drive to about 430GB, which would fit on a 480GB SSD. After I buy it, I can just clone the whole drive. My problem with the programs still persists,though. I'll try clonezilla.
use AOMEI Backupper Standard, it's free you can clone a partition or whole drive. I would suggest whole drive, then just unplug the HDD after you're done. Yes re-installing Adobe, 3d studio, premiere and 30+ other games and apps really deter reinstalling but it's 20x faster than installing windows 8 or 7 nowadays.