Replacing hard drive/backup

itstomcat

Estimable
May 6, 2015
13
0
4,560
Hey everyone,

I'm going to be upgrading my Dell Studio 1555 Laptops hard drive to a SSD SATA from Crucial and was wondering what steps I should take to properly back it up.

I don't have any of my original windows or installation CD's anymore. I originally bought the laptop in late 2009/almost 2010 and was actually surprised when I saw that Dell put a Toshiba that was made in 2006 in my laptop when I originally bought it. What did surprise me was that the Windows file in the C drive is 100GB....must be all those updates.

Anyways, what steps can I take to properly back it up? I've already transferred all my pictures, videos, documents and music to a external drive. The only programs I really have is Microsoft Word/excel/PowerPoint. This shouldn't be too complicated. I definitely don't want to bring any unwanted random files on my new hard drive.

Let me know your thoughts and opinions!

Best,
Tommy
 

Boogieman_WD

Estimable
Jul 31, 2014
94
0
4,660
Hey there, Tommy.

From what I understand you don't have a retail copy of your Windows and you want to migrate your system? If this is the case, I'd suggest that you check out this tutorial on how to do that: http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to-migrate-to-a-solid-state-drive-without-reinstalling-windows. Basically it has a lot of good tips on how to manage the SSD as well as how to setup everything.
As for the C: drive, it might be so full because of system restore points. You can manually adjust the amount of space which you want your system to use in order to store system restore points. Also, here's a link with a few suggestions on how to trim down your hard drive along with some software options which can show you exactly what kind of files are filling up your space: http://www.howtogeek.com/125923/7-ways-to-free-up-hard-disk-space-on-windows/

Oh, and you did pretty well by backing up your personal data in advance. :)

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD