Transferring Windows 8 OS to new SSD

Hi Exsurgo,

Instead of DVD you can use USB disks and see if it works.

As per the information we have the size miss match will not be a concern. You cannot install the SSD and backup.

Please try and let us know if it works.

Please do get back to us for further assistance or information.

I was able to carry out the factory backup, but I did not have an option to choose the SSD and therefore it restored the original OS on the HDD.  Do I need to disable the Hard-drive to force the software to use the SSD?

Hi Exsurgo,

Switch the SSD in the current hard drive and put the 1TB hard drive in secondary slot and it will work.

 Please do get back to us on further assistance or information.

It seem this dell software is not up to the job, and thanks to this ridiculous Windows/UEFI bios-locked product key my options seem really limited with the laptop that has been sitting un-usable for three days.

At this point I am feeling that I will have to fall back to my old copy of Windows 7 due to this installation problem.

I am now getting this message:

"Your hard drive is not supported by this process.  Please use a hard drive at least 931GB in space."

Hi Exsurgo,

I request you to provide the service tag on a private chat and I will get back to you on the status.

Below details will help you on how to send me a private chat.

I have added you as a friend.

Please accept my friend request by clicking on my name ‘NIKHIL M ’highlighted in blue and then click on “Friends” tab at the top and then click on “Request to Review” and finally click on “Accept” button.

I am sending you a private message as well.

Click on “Inbox” to respond to the message and provide the monitor PPID and contact details so I may access your system records and check for further course of action.

You could also click on Start Conversation to send a private message. Please let me know if this helps.

Please get back to us on further assistance or information.

Thanks for the reply.  I have sent the Conversation request with the details of the purchase.

From reading online I think my options are:

1 : Resize (shrink) all the partitions in Windows 8 and then burn all four recovery discs all over again (not an ideal option)

2 : Permanently downgrade to Windows 7 (not exactly ideal considering the PC came with Windows 8)

3 : SSD Cloning software (I am not prepared to pay for this software, also cloning will unlikely give as good performance/reliability as a clean install

4 : Get installation media from dell

Unless I can find some other solution it seems Microsoft really messed up with this disc-less OEM fiasco.  So so many people will be getting laptops around this time of year and also getting SSDs in the sales.

The process of getting Windows 8 OEM working on the SSD is pretty disastrous.

To boot from disc in UEFI I went into Windows Advanced Startup and got it to reboot from DVD that way.

Are you trying to do a factory Image restore?

I'm trying to do the same thing, but i'm trying to install from a USB. Did you have any problems with booting from UEFI? The only way bios would recognize my USB install drive was to turn off Secureboot and turn on Legacy boot, but I'd really like to do a UEFI install. Likewise, did you have to do anything to prepare the SSD? My understanding from what I'm reading is that if you want to do a UEFI install, the SSD must be partitioned as GPT rather than MBR.

How did you ask for disc? When I called them, they said they cannot send me the disc........ Thx

You should consider using some freeware (Such as Easeus Todo Backup) to transfer Windows 8 from HDD to SSD.