Windows 10 upgraded from Seven, can’t change install location

I would like to transfer/ or reinstall my Windows 10 (upgraded from a Windows 7) on another drive. Currently it’s installed on a 500 GB hard-drive, but I bought a 500 GB SSD and I connected it to my computer.

I downloaded the Windows 10 ISO setup file from Microsoft site, tried to launch it but it will not ask me a drive or partition on which I would like to install it.

How can I put or reinstall it on my SSD, while keeping my official version registered ?

Thanks a lot for hints or solution !

Simply perform a regular clean installation. That means you’ll have to boot using your installation medium. Launching Setup in Windows is not enough.

During Setup, skip entering the Product Key. The existing activation will be restored automatically on the same PC.

It might be desirable to disconnect other drives when installing so the Windows Boot Manager ends up on the SSD.

A possible solution:

1. get some imaging software with boot from usb/cd option
2. create bootable usb/cd
3. change boot order (usb, cd, ssd, hdd)
4. boot from imaging software
5. with it create copy from HDD to SSD (be careful not to copy from empty to full disk, ALWAYS have a backup!!!)
6. change boot order to use SSD first (or maybe disconnect HDD), remove bootable usb/cd
7. make sure everything is okay, boot from SSD, win10 working and activated
8. be really sure everything works
9. reuse (format?) HDD

Sometimes boot issues can happen when trying to boot from imaged disk, you will have to deal with them, thus the make sure everything works twice (at least). I used this method successfully on Windows 8.1, should work on Windows 10 also.

If you have no experience with imaging software, a good idea would be to test it and get enough experience to be comfortable with it – imaging will DESTROY existing data on destination!!!

I would use a drive clone software to get an 1:1 copy of your windwos 10 which is installed on the 500 GB harddrive to the SSD.

Clonezilla, Acronis True Image HD and GParted Live are good tools for that.

Google gives you an extensive collection of instructions how to do that!