Part 3 – Swapping the hard drives
This is part 3 of my instructions for transforming your old laptop (or desktop) running Windows 7 into a Windows 10 version that works. Today we are going to perform the hardware related tasks.
Now unplug the USB external hard drive. Unplug the power from your laptop and turn it upside down so that you can see its back. You should see usually two separate covers, held by screws. One will let you access the memory, the other will let you access the hard disk. It this later that you need to open. Note that on some laptops, you remove the entire back cover to reveal all of the innards.
Tip: take a picture of the hard drive with your phone so you can remember how it was all setup. Unscrew and lift the HD end opposite the connector (with its anti-vibration protection if applicable – bright blue on picture). Then gently unplug the connecting cable to the hard drive (HD), noting which way the connector is lying. Remove the HD from the laptop, noting which way and how the connector is facing the cable.
Now install the new SSD in the place of the old HD (putting it first in the antivibration protection if applicable). Make sure the SSD is facing the same way as the old HD, so that the connector presents itself to the cable in the same way as the old one, gently connect the cable and push the SSD down in its location (or screw it in). Replace the cover on the back of the laptop.
Now try switching your laptop back on, and it should be the same as before, with Windows 7 , with no difference, except it was so much quicker to boot up! (and also closed down you will see).
This is one of the advantage of upgrading your disk drive is that you are not going to touch the old one. So should anything go wrong, all you need to do is pop the old drive back in, and you are back to where you started. So it is as risk-free as possible.
The other advantage of this setup is that at the end of the day, you can put the old HDD into the HDD case and can then use it as an external USB hard drive. A bonus for backing up data or for extra storage.
In my next post, I will explain how to upgrade Windows 7 to Windows 10.