Posted on 01/25/2018 9:54:19 AM PST by dennisw
I have a much more fundamental and universal need :
How can anyone install or reinstall essential (already purchased) software these days on Windows laptops and desktops that no longer have DVD drives???
I don't buy "cloud" subscription software, and never will!!
External USB DVD drive. Mine cost me about twenty bucks. Handy little guy.
Macrium Reflect or Easeus Todo. Either will get the job done. I have used them many, many times. Never had a software failure.
Be careful during the software install to bypass the PUP* questions.
*PUP - Probably Unwanted Program.
ditto- and it’s faster than most cloning programs because of it’s priority method of cloning i believe- great little software
I’ve not tried it yet- but would it work for cloning dual boot system?
Ditto for #14 post-
The last couple of Dells upgraded I purchased Samsung 850 EVO mSATA. Samsung provided a software tool to transfer the image - think is was available for download.
Suggest you check with the product and see if it includes software - you might not need it.
I've never tried it but. I use VMs for alternate OS machines beyond my Linux. But it should work. It runs under Windows and uses VSS to create an image of one or multiple partitions, regardless of what said partition is used for.
Thus, run it and check off all partitions to include in the image. To restore, install new drive, boot with Rescue Disk and restore image on new drive.
It should work because it is a snapshot image that gets written to blank (or not) media.
I might do this. But then my question is will the original windows 10 key on the laptop (see it w magic jellybean) work on the fresh win 10 installation on the new SSD? I would think so but I would like to know for sure.
Thanks! And you can easily make a bootable flash drive with macrium reflect? To restore from that image?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001U02JZ8/
I have one.
[[To restore, install new drive, boot with Rescue Disk and restore image on new drive.]]
I would have to have the image stored on an external drive, right? Or maybe a secondary internal hard-drive? (which i have)
I run into issues when trying to link to external HD when trying to access it when restoring- it’s a little confusing how to go about that. I’ll have to look into how to do that- I think there was an issue with the kind of bios or something in the bios- in order to get it to see the external HD when booting-
Absolutely.
You can make a bootable flash drive to boot the macrium rescue 'disk' in order to restore from an external USB hard drive. This works well for laptops that don't have a CD drive. I made a bootable flash drive onc a couple of years ago and stashed it just in case. I don't recall the process but it is easily found on the 'net and takes a very short time.
Yes. I keep my regular backup images on a secondary slave drive.
For the images I make for friends who can't wrap their heads around the process...or the fact that they have to do it at least monthly...I use an external USB drive.
Accessing the image on a USB drive should be very automatic. Plug in the USB drive with image and then boot the computer with the Macrium Rescue CD (you have to use Macrium to create it. Takes only a minute). Macrium Reflect will scan the computer and recognize the USB drive. You can then browse to it as the source and aim it at the new target.
If this does not work for you, there may indeed be BIOS setting or such that you would need to check on. You do not boot from the USB drive. Remember, the Rescue CD is a Linux based live type CD so the USB drive should be found when booting.
My dad came with software via internet. Transition was painless.
OK I get you 100%. You keep your succession of macrium reflect images on an external USB connected HDD or SSD.
Plus to boot to your M-Reflect image you can use a macrium reflect formatted flash drive or CD/DVD
Another question-—
Can the USB ports of your average laptop handle the electricity drawn by an external 2.5” HDD that you plug into your laptop?
I figure that an external SSD drive uses so little electric that plugging it into the laptop’s USB port is never an issue. I have a USB-SATA adapter for this
Just nail down your boot order. I know my desktops BIOS can be confusing......so your might be hard to fisgure out But if you nail down your booting into EXACTLY what you need to boot into////be it a USB flash drive or a CD//// you cannot go wrong because the software takes over from there
Yup. For housekeeping purposes I only keep two images. Once a third is taken, I delete the oldest one, thereby rolling off the images to save space.
Good question. I use the small laptop drives in a USB enclosure only for read operations like MP3s and such. For long write operations where data integrity is key, I use a 3.5” drive in an enclosure that has its own power supply. Just to be sure.
Good answer. Thanks. I am going to guess that a desktop’s motherboard is much less likely to have any problems with its USB ports powering a 2.5” external hard drive. BUT you never want to risk messing up a laptop’s motherboard via an electrically over burdened USB port.
After you install Windows 10. You do not need to enter a key. Just click a button to activate. Microsoft stores the details of your pc on their server.
Start button> Settings.
Click on Update & Security.
Click on Activation.
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