Is it possible to upgrade my HD?

Right now I'm completely pissed at Windows 8. I bought a Sony Vaio SVE14a27cxh due to the specs of the machine but twice it's gone into this "repair mode" that takes hours and deletes absolutely everything on it. The machine is also overly slow, and loud. It has a 3rd gen i7 quad with 8GB of memory.

I wish this had windows 7 but I guess I'm stuck using windows 8. There's just too much sucks about W8 from the two IE browsers, shoving Xbox down my throat when I don't have one, horrible tile system that tries to make it look like a cell phone to you name it. But I'm stuck with it *rant over*.

Anyway my largest complaint with this machine, assuming the 8.1 update fixed whatever was crashing the system, is load times of just about anything take forever. Right now it has a 1TB 5400RPM HD that I'd like to replace with a 256GB SSD.

I bought my laptop at bestbuy off the shelf so don't have a W8 disk but it did come with w8 on it. I'm using it right now. Is there a way for me to find the license product key then install w8 on the SSD and use the key there? Is there some other way I could go about doing this? I was hoping to download a trial version and install then use the product key if I can find it.

The Vaio came with the box and everything but no W8 CD's. When I've had to wipe everything it was always stored on a partition.

There are plenty of options to change the appearance of W8... I have never heard of 2 IE browsers though... what is that about? In the beta, I never saw a mention of an Xbox really. I am a bit confused.

You should have the key on a sticker on the laptop or in some included documentation. If it isn't there, try one of these google returns to retrieve the key.

Laptops do not come with disks anymore really. At least the 3 I have bought in the past 5 years didn't. So no disk is expected.

Bottom line, yes, you can do that (get an SSD, install the same version of W8 you have and input the key). You can even get W8 from the MS website.

Good luck!

EarthDog said:

There are plenty of options to change the appearance of W8... I have never heard of 2 IE browsers though... what is that about? In the beta, I never saw a mention of an Xbox really. I am a bit confused.

You should have the key on a sticker on the laptop or in some included documentation. If it isn't there, try one of these google returns to retrieve the key.

Laptops do not come with disks anymore really. At least the 3 I have bought in the past 5 years didn't. So no disk is expected.

Bottom line, yes, you can do that (get an SSD, install the same version of W8 you have and input the key). You can even get W8 from the MS website.

Good luck!

Click to expand...

I'm trying to learn to love this thing. The IE tile in w8 is one browser. However the IE Tile in desktop mode is a complete other. I had the Windows 8 start buttom but that was the only real modification I had made to the laptop in the past and it kept crashing losing everything so I'm scared to try that. Is there anything specific you could recommend to make it more like windows 7? I put their 8.1 download on here and it didn't really change much as far as that goes.

Yea I thought I could download the windows 8 from the website but can't find it. Still digging and if I can find it then I'm going to run to Fry's and ditch this slow HD.

M$ is making this pretty difficult it only will let me try to put it on this PC as an installer. I can't seem to find the w8 actual download to burn to a disk. Do you have a link?

Honestly, what I am posting is from running across threads here. Let me dig one up...

Not here... the dude who I thought created the W8 to W7 threads creates threads as much as posts so... Here is Google (sorry): https://www.google.com/search?q=how...4&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8

As far as Windows 8.1 ISO (this isn't the ISO but a trick): http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39...nload-the-official-microsoft-windows-8.1-iso/


GL!

magicjellybean seems to give you product keys FYI worked very simple like

Thank you very much for the hard work but that one won't work either. You have to have 8.0 installed to put 8.1 on. You can't download and install 8.1 strait from disk so I'm trying to find the 8.0 iso

You can make Windows 8 look like Windows 7 in 15 seconds and for free: http://www.classicshell.net/

Here's a custom Windows 7 Button for you:

ToiletDuck said:

Thank you very much for the hard work but that one won't work either. You have to have 8.0 installed to put 8.1 on. You can't download and install 8.1 strait from disk so I'm trying to find the 8.0 iso

Click to expand...

This is untrue, you can install 8.1 from scratch.

just a heads up in relation to the time its taking you to restore your laptop, that's normal for windows 8.

I've had to restore the display laptops at work more times than I can count and it always takes atleast 6 hours, even on a computer with specs similar to yours.

doesent seem to matter what hardware its got on it, weither its a e series AMD or an intel celeron to a A-10 and an i7 it always takes way longer than it ever should

pcgamer4life said:

This is untrue, you can install 8.1 from scratch.

Click to expand...

All you need is generic windows key 8.1 for the install, and then you input your legitimate product after the install.

There should be a Sony program on the PC that will let you burn a set of Restore DVDs. You can use that to restore a factory image (crapware and all) on to a new hard drive. I'd do that first just to have on hand, but continue to pursue the 8.1 clean install option.