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XPS 8500, SSD installation help
Hi, I have a Dell XPS 8500 desktop that came with an i7-3770, 8gb of Ram,1TB HDD, with motherboard ONW73C version A00. The hard drive is starting to takes errors so I was thinking of installing a 256gb Msata drive (it's empty right now) just for the windows 10 operating system and then replacing the 1TB hard drive with a 500gb SSD using the 0sata port. The owners manual on page 22 indicates no.20 is the sata 3.0 (6g/bs) drive connector SATA0. I believe the MSATA also is a 6g/bs, so this way I'd have my operating system on 1 SSD(MSATA) and then another SSD for storage and I'd be maxing out my motherboard which would fine with me since this will eventually be my back up pc. Can this actually be done? Has anyone done this and been successful?
Then do a clean install of windows 10, or should I do an OEM reinstall of windows, because I think I'd 1st have to a windows 8 ( since that what originally came with the desktop) reinstall then upgrade to windows 10. Any help would greatly be appreciated since I have done reinstall since the windows XP days of yesteryear. Although its odd, I've recovered my windows 10 home product key and it indicates it's windows 10, not windows 8. I did the free Microsoft upgrade 8 >> 10. Thanks.
Cbarnhorst
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June 23rd, 2018 15:00
There is no need to reinstall the OEM OS (it wasn't Windows 10 in the first place). Just install the mSATA card, disconnect the HDD, and install the same edition of Windows 10 currently in use on the HDD. Windows 10 will activate automatically as soon as the computer connects to the internet. This is because the unique hardware IDs of the computer (motherboard) are already registered with Microsoft. No product key is needed and if asked for one during installation, click the link at the bottom of the Product Key Request page that says "I don't have a product key."
You can then reconnect the HDD and do whatever you need to reinstall programs and transfer files.