How to move/reinstall Windows 10 on newly installed M.2 SSD?

[Minimum666]

Hello, I just installed an M.2 SSD to my laptop. I would like to reinstall Windows onto the new SSD while keeping my files. I don't mind reinstalling all my apps. What is the proper way to do it? Thank you so much!

PS. My HDD is partitioned to have a recovery drive with the HP recovery software.

[WAWood]

@Minimum666 

You have a couple of different options:

1) Cloning -- you could CLONE your existing Windows install to the SSD and this would retain everything.  To do this, you need an adapter to connect the SSD to your PC and you need to shrink the OS partition on the HDD to be small enough so that all the partitions will fit easily on the SSD.  (more on this below)

2) Clean Install: you could get a 32GB USB stick and see if you can use the HP CLoud Recovery tool to create Win10 install media and do a clean install of Win10 to the SSD.  (more on this below)

-------------------- Clone option ------------------------

1) Download and install Macrium Reflect (MR) from here: https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree
2) Connect the new drive to the PC using a USB-to-SSD drive adapter (like the one illustrated below)
3) Follow the instructions in this link: http://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW/Cloning+a+disk
4) Shutdown the PC when done
5) Swap the drives and reboot the PC.

------------------- Recovery Media option ---------------

If your PC is a 2016 model or newer, you should see if you can make a bootable USB recovery drive using the HP cloud recovery tool on a working PC.

The recovery drive can then be used to install Win10 and the HP drivers and utilities that originally came with your PC.

Here is the link: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06162205