Replacing the hard drive in a Lenovo Y50

professormoobsicle

Honorable
Aug 16, 2012
1
0
10,510
I'm considering purchasing this laptop and I want to replace the hybrid HDD with an SSD/standard 7200 rpm HDD. I don't think the laptop comes with a Windows CD, so how would I get around transferring Windows from the HDD to the new HDD? Would I have to create a system image on an external and transfer it?
 
Solution
You can clone your drive using third party software, all you need is a USB enclosure for the new drive and (sometimes) a CD/USB for the cloning software. Some manufacturers offer disk cloning software with their drives, but not all of them. I personally use Clonezilla whenever I need to clone a drive, but there are other free solutions like Macrium that you can try as well. Just make sure the software you choose has a sector by sector cloning option, which will copy the disk exactly, leaving you with the same OS installation as the old drive. As a bonus, the USB enclosure you buy can then keep your old hard drive in there for data storage if you wish.

zeyuanfu

Estimable
Jun 19, 2014
85
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4,610

Your OS is tied to your computer, so change the drive and reinstall it.
 

itsygeek

Estimable
Sep 14, 2014
1
0
4,510

..how? There is no OS media included. Reinstall it using what? The recovery OS image is on the drive you are replacing.

I guess OP can either contact Lenovo support or try copying the D partition (where recovery exists) to the new SSD and go on from there. I have no confidence on the latter, even I'm researching methods as I too will probably buy this laptop soon and replace with SSD. I have been looking for answers for the past hour.
 

drapacioli

Distinguished
Dec 6, 2010
308
0
19,010
You can clone your drive using third party software, all you need is a USB enclosure for the new drive and (sometimes) a CD/USB for the cloning software. Some manufacturers offer disk cloning software with their drives, but not all of them. I personally use Clonezilla whenever I need to clone a drive, but there are other free solutions like Macrium that you can try as well. Just make sure the software you choose has a sector by sector cloning option, which will copy the disk exactly, leaving you with the same OS installation as the old drive. As a bonus, the USB enclosure you buy can then keep your old hard drive in there for data storage if you wish.
 
Solution