installing SSD drive 120 gig

[blingblam1]

Had to replace my broken hard drive. The local PC shop sold me on an SSD 120 gig for a faster boot. Just installed today and get a message saying ( in recovery manager) Under (reset factory settings) " The hard drive for this computer is smaller than the original shipped hard drive. The recovery process cannot be completed. minimum size is 140GB".

Did the shop guy at Ed's PCs burn me to get rid of the 120 gig? Will I have to pay them more to fix this?

Is there any way I can Boot this and get windows up and running without buying another hard drive?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks

[old_geekster · Accepted solution]

@blingblam1, welcome to the forum.

The seller may have believed that the 120 GB SSD would work.  At one point, that was the minimum size that would accomodate the Recovery media.  Apparently, the newer Recovery media requires at least 140 GB to work properly.  Truthfully, I normally recommend at least 250 GB to be safe.

Q: Is there any way I can Boot this and get windows up and running without buying another hard drive?

A: The only way would be to buy a full version of Windows.  A 120 GB SSD is almost too small for an installation of Windows.  It doesn't leave much room for additional apps.

I suggest talking to the seller of the SSD to see if he will let you exchange it for a larger one.  After all, he did recommend the smaller one.
 

[mdklassen]

> Is there any way I can Boot this and get windows up and running without buying another hard drive?

No, but if you can find a "used" SEAGATE or WESTERN DIGITAL drive, say 160 GB for $20 US, install to it.

Then, download the free(!) "disk-cloning" software from the (respective) manufacturer's web-site, and install it on this "temporary" disk-drive.

Connect your SSD drive, and run the "cloning" software.

You will have an opportunity to "shrink" the 'C:' partition down to the available space on the SSD.

Windows 10 takes about 30 GB (after running Windows Update several times), leaving lots of "free" space for an "average" user.  Of course, if you have many GB of pictures/music and want to install "large" software packages (e.g., Microsoft Office), you will have to keep some "discipline" about consuming that "free" space.

[blingblam1]

Thanks...I ended up paying for the upgrade to 240 gig. They exchanged the 120. While trying to find a solution I followed instructions Online to create a 'bootable USB'...it disn't work...but now my Seagate external 1T harddrive does not show on my main computer. In fact my main computer would not boot till I disconnected it...if it's not one thing, it's another!

[mdklassen]

> I followed instructions Online to create a 'bootable USB'...it didn't work...

How far did you get in the process before you got an error-message? 

What was the error-message?

Or, did it write to the USB memory-stick, but when you tried to boot from it, it did not boot?

> my Seagate external 1T harddrive does not show on my main computer.

If you connect it to another computer, is it detected?

> if it's not one thing, it's another!

A watched kettle never boils. 🙂

If you are looking for something you have lost, it's always in the last place that you look. 🙂

No good deed goes unpunished.  🙂