I am thinking about getting a HP Envy 17 Leap motion as well as a Samsung 840 Evo SSD. I have been reading posts about how to install the OS on a SSD but I am still confused. Any help would be much appreciated.
1. I read the instruction to create a recovery USB drive from the system recovery pre-installed. Can I use the USB drive to do a clean install on my SSD?
2. I also read the instruction to download the 8.1 iso from Microsoft.com. At the same time I saw comments saying that the OEM product key will not be able to activate the OS. Is it true?
3. It is my first time using a SSD and I read that I need to go to the BIOS interface and turn the On-chip SATA mode to AHCI. Also I saw that I would need to format my SSD (to NTFS?) before the installation. Can someone provide a clear guideline for me on what I should do to reinstall the OS on my new SSD?
Right now what I think I should is as followed:
1. Create a USB recovery drive.
2. Plug the new SSD to the computer and format it to NTFS.
3. Remove the original hard drive and replace it with the SSD.
4. Go to BIOS and change the SATA mode to AHCI.
5. Reboot the laptop and choose to boot from USB drive.
6. Continue the installation.
7. After the installation, plug in the HDD and format it to NTFS.
Am I missing something and is there anything I should be mindful of?
Thank you so much.