My old HP ENVY laptop needs some love. It's network adapter card no longer recognizes the 5Ghz network from my router; plus, the 1Tb HDD is a bit slow loading apps. The installed drive is less than 25% used with the rest free. It is partitioned into 5 different addressable drives. I have a new 512GB SDD and a new network adapter card.
I'm considering opening the case, replacing the network adapter card, and swapping the SSD for the installed HDD. It is running Windows 10 Home edition version 22H2 and is, I believe, current with all updates. I say this because running Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > Check for Updates says that it is. I want to do this with as little work as possible, that is to say without having to reinstall the OS and all the apps; therefore cloning from the old to the new is my plan.
My plan is to . . .
1) Make one more complete backup
2) Clone the HDD to the SSD by installing the SSD in a USB enclosure and connecting it to the laptop. From reading I've done online, it's possible to clone a larger HDD to a smaller SSD. I've never done it and haven't tried to do a clone install in a number of years - probably more than 10 years. (I have AOEMI Partition Assistant which I understand will do the cloning; I have only used it for HDD partitioning.)
Here are some questions I have: Should I be able to boot directly from the SSD after installing it in place of the HDD? (If not, why not?) I don't want to buy software for the move and would seek free software if AOMEI won't do the trick. What have I overlooked? What cautions and advice do you have for me?
3) After completing the system migration and installing the SSD, install the new network adapter.
Which leads to more questions. All new network adapter cards that I could find now include BT; the old adaptor does not support BT. Will Windows 10 recognize the new hardware capability after I get the new drivers and updates installed?
Any guidance will be greatly appreciated.
