Clone HHD to SSD and RAM upgrade

[J_tatters]

Hi  , I don’t know if any body can help . I bought a HP laptop for my daughter a few years ago . Over the last few months it’s been getting slower and slower . I would like to swap out the hard drive for a solid state one  and while I am there add extra ram. My question is.. I need to clone my old hard drive to the new ssd . What software is best to use as I need a complete copy because of the recovery  partition on the hard drive now and all the drivers etc . Hope this makes sense! 

[WAWood]

@J_tatters

Let's get some terms straight, so we're talking about the same thing.

To "clone" means to make an exact copy -- and the only way to do that with two drives is if the target drive is at least the same capacity as the source -- which in the case of cloning an HDD to an SSD, is almost never the case.

What you have to do prior to cloning, is shrink down the primary OS partition on the HDD until the total of ALL the partitions can fit easily onto the SSD.  IF you try to clone an HDD that is too large to fit onto an SSD, the operation will simply refuse to run.

I have done such cloning numerous times with success and the product I recommend is Macrium Reflect -- which is free.

What I recommend is the following:
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-Hard-Drive 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.

You should boot from the new drive without any problems.

Typical USB-to-Hard-Drive adapter:

Good Luck