Adding an M.2 SATA SSD as a boot drive and keeping all the files on the HDD (except boot files)

[kartsona]

I bought this HP Pavilion 15-cc023cl almost exactly 2 years ago for school and so far it's been just ok. Cheap laptop for basic document editing or internet surfing. But, the slowness of the 1TB 5400rpm HDD is becoming more apparent and I bought a 256gb SATA III M.2 SSD to add to the laptop as the new boot drive (and maybe some program directories for things that take awhile to load up). Haven't installed it yet, I've been reading support forums to figure out how to install it as the boot drive but I'm just confused.

The Maintenance and Service guide (found here) said my laptop supported only SATA SSDs or I would've gone with a NVMe drive instead. I have little experience with boot drives & Windows installation so I reached out to HP for help but I got nowhere with their customer service. I read a bunch of posts on the HP forums but each has a different scenario from me, either they're replacing the HDD with an SSD or wiping everything and starting with the SSD as the boot drive. 

I've gathered I need to initialize the SSD (not sure whether in Boot or disk management), partition it and make a Windows Recovery Media Drive to boot Windows from and Install onto the SSD but not entirely sure how to go about doing that. I want to keep the HDD where it is and with all its files (it's 150GBs used up so far, full of school work files and programs) just without the Boot files. I read it'll be better to have a fresh install of Windows on the SSD but will I have to install all my programs again or any of my settings? (My Windows settings I can deal with redoing, my program settings not so much).

My Questions Are: How do I get to a boot menu, get my SSD initialized and set up as the new boot drive, delete the boot files from the OEM HDD but keep everything else? 

[old_geekster]

@kartsona , welcome to the forum.

Q: How do I get to a boot menu, get my SSD initialized and set up as the new boot drive, delete the boot files from the OEM HDD but keep everything else? 

A: The best way to install a new SSD as a boot drive is, install the SSD.  Clone the HDD to the SSD using a good cloning software.  There are many FREE options online.  If your new SSD is a Samsung they have their Data Migration software.

You would install the cloning software onto the HDD.  Then, open the app and choose the target drive which would be the SSD.  Once the HDD has been cloned to the SSD, you should go into the BIOS to change the Boot Order to the SSD.  Reboot the laptop and it should boot to the SSD.  Using this method you won't have to do anything to prepare the SSD.  It will be done for you.  Once you have booted to the SSD you can delete the boot files from the HDD.

Please click the Thumbs up + button if I have helped you and click Accept as Solution if your problem is solved.