Hello,
I recently bought a Lenovo Z580 with Windows 8 pre-installed. It did not come with installation discs. I also bought a Samsung 830 256GB SSD with the laptop kit, which includes a SATA to USB cord, a disc copy of Norton Ghost, and a disc copy of Samsung Magician. In addition, I bought a USB 2.0 enclosure that will hold my internal HDD (until I find a good USB 3.0 enclosure).
My goal: to have my laptop be running Windows 8 off of the SSD which would be my main and only drive in my laptop. I would like to do this as simply as possible, with as few steps as possible.
I have looked online for quite some time, and whatever I have tried has failed.
Originally I wanted to use Norton Ghost to copy an image over to my SSD. It turns out Norton Ghost 15.0 doesn't support Windows 8.
So then I looked at other options. Let me get the vocabulary and options clear here, because it's frikkin confusing and nothing I have found really explains it.
"Boot from" = Using BIOS to tell the computer to look at a certain drive to "boot from" that drive. However, I don't understand what boot from actually means. Do you need Windows 8 INSTALLED already on something that you boot from? Do you just need an IMAGE of Windows 8?
System Refresh = Not really reinstalling anything???
System Restore = ???
System Image Recovery = Recover Windows using a specific system image file. How do I create this system image file? Can this system image be put on a USB, and then "booted from" it?
Bootable recovery drive = a USB drive that can be "booted from."
Here is a record of what I have tried:
Okay, so I gave up for the night. Today I tried to create the system image using the OneKey Recovery.
I have not yet tried any type of free imaging software, as mentioned in this thread here, which asks essentially the same question that I am asking in this thread. However, I don't think any of the answers given in that thread were good enough because they assume knowledge and aren't clear in describing the order of steps.
So if anyone responds to the thread, it would be greatly appreciated if you describe exactly the order of steps needed to do accomplish this transfer of Windows 8.
(I actually really dislike that they do not include installation DVDs. Because if they had, I would be done with this already.)
I recently bought a Lenovo Z580 with Windows 8 pre-installed. It did not come with installation discs. I also bought a Samsung 830 256GB SSD with the laptop kit, which includes a SATA to USB cord, a disc copy of Norton Ghost, and a disc copy of Samsung Magician. In addition, I bought a USB 2.0 enclosure that will hold my internal HDD (until I find a good USB 3.0 enclosure).
My goal: to have my laptop be running Windows 8 off of the SSD which would be my main and only drive in my laptop. I would like to do this as simply as possible, with as few steps as possible.
I have looked online for quite some time, and whatever I have tried has failed.
Originally I wanted to use Norton Ghost to copy an image over to my SSD. It turns out Norton Ghost 15.0 doesn't support Windows 8.
So then I looked at other options. Let me get the vocabulary and options clear here, because it's frikkin confusing and nothing I have found really explains it.
"Boot from" = Using BIOS to tell the computer to look at a certain drive to "boot from" that drive. However, I don't understand what boot from actually means. Do you need Windows 8 INSTALLED already on something that you boot from? Do you just need an IMAGE of Windows 8?
System Refresh = Not really reinstalling anything???
System Restore = ???
System Image Recovery = Recover Windows using a specific system image file. How do I create this system image file? Can this system image be put on a USB, and then "booted from" it?
Bootable recovery drive = a USB drive that can be "booted from."
Here is a record of what I have tried:
- After going to Start menu, typed "Recovery Drive" to search and find the "Create a recovery drive" process. Clicked on that.
- At this point, a "Create a recovery drive" menu popped up. My laptop came with a recovery partition, so it tells me I can copy it to the recovery drive so you can use it to "refresh or reset your PC." There is a box that I can click that says "Copy the recovery partition form the PC to the recovery drive." I checked this box and hit next.
- It prompted me to connect a USB drive with at least 16 GB, so I connected a 32 GB flashdrive. I then went through the process and the recovery drive was made. It took up around 10 GB.
- At this point I thought I could "boot from" the USB, and then install Windows 8 via the recovery drive on my SSD. Hence I shut down the laptop, removed the battery, removed the HDD, put the SSD in its place, put the battery back in and started up the laptop. It gave me the language and keyboard options, and then brought up a screen that was similar to the "Advanced Setup" screen that can be accessed via PC Settings => General => scroll down to the bottom under "Advanced Setup." However this "Advanced Setup" screen had fewer options.
- I now plugged in the USB recovery drive.
- I went to "Troubleshoot" => "Advanced Options," and went to UEFI Firmware settings. Clicking "Enter" on the USB under the "Boot Menu" restarted the computer and took me back to the Language/Keyboard choosing. So it did nothing.
- So now I went back to the UEFI Firmware settings and hit Tab to go to the App Menu, then hit Enter to go into "Setup". I scrolled over to "Boot" and in here was the options of Boot Mode, USB Boot, and Boot Priority Order. Boot Mode is [UEFI], USB Boot is [Enabled], and then I placed the Boot Priority Order to have the USB come first, and then the SSD, and then everything else. I then restarted. It took me back to the Language/Keyboard choosing. So it did nothing.
- I then put the HDD into the enclosure and tried to "boot from" that. I expected this to work because it actually has Windows 8 installed on it. Didn't work. I was always caught in the Language/Keyboard loop.
Okay, so I gave up for the night. Today I tried to create the system image using the OneKey Recovery.
- I swapped the SSD and HDD back so I could get Windows 8 running again.
- I got to the OneKey Recovery menu. I hit "System Backup", and it gave me the option of where to back up to. I changed it to "Hard Disk or Removable Hard Drive"
- The Estimated image size was 29 GB, and so I used my 32GB Flash drive to create the image.
- After that, I tried to use that image on my USB to reinstall Windows 8 from the "Advanced Setup" screen, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. You can get to a section that asks for an image somewhere, but it wants one from the HDD, not from the USB.
I have not yet tried any type of free imaging software, as mentioned in this thread here, which asks essentially the same question that I am asking in this thread. However, I don't think any of the answers given in that thread were good enough because they assume knowledge and aren't clear in describing the order of steps.
So if anyone responds to the thread, it would be greatly appreciated if you describe exactly the order of steps needed to do accomplish this transfer of Windows 8.
(I actually really dislike that they do not include installation DVDs. Because if they had, I would be done with this already.)
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- Windows 8
- CPU
- i5 3210
- Memory
- 6GB
- Graphics Card(s)
- GeForce GT 635m
- Hard Drives
- 500 GB HDD, 256GB Samsung 830 SSD