Clone hdd to ssd?

I am trying to clone my hdd to ssd on my G75vx with windows 8. I bought a Samsung 840 and used the data migration software in the box and all seemed fine. I switched to ahci and moved the ssd to boot drive 0 and swapped drives. It wouldn't boot from the ssd or accept the ssd as the primary drive all it did is go straight to the recovery screen even with just the SSD in the laptop. Luckily I kept the hdd factory and that at least still works.
my problem is I'm computer illiterate and have little idea of what I'm doing especially being new to windows 8, and I'm sure I missed a step here and there. I'm gonna try easus because acronis won't support one of my drives and I have no faith in the Samsung migration. Anyways I tried to google it but there are a thousand different to-do's out there and none seem to go through the whole process.
If anyone knows a link to a thorough process I would greatly appreciate, because my next option is BestBuy Geeksquad for $100 and 3-5 days. I would prefer to do it myself, but I'm afraid I'll screw something up on a laptop 2 weeks old. Sorry for the wall of text and thanks if you read this far.

 

why no fresh install on "laptop 2 weeks old"?

 

Data migration just moves your data over. It does not clone the OS. You'll need something along the lines of Clonezilla to do that, and even then, it's almost always advised that you do a fresh install instead of cloning.

If you decide to clone, take a look at this guide. I hope it helps.

 

Thanks Prostar as for the other question I heard that Windows 8 is locked to the factory hdd and you need a copy of windows to install on another hdd. That's what tech support at Asus told me anyways.

 

I'm not sure where the confusion is, but Windows 8 can certainly be cloned/imaged.

The thing to keep in mind though, is that on your Windows 8 OEM devices, the key is burned into the firmware. So while you can clone a Win8 drive, then use the new drive in the *same* computer, you can't pull a drive out of your Asus ABC and use it in an Asus XYZ and expect it to activate.

 

Is that under Windows 7 Recovery or is it under something else to get the disc I need? I may need to go that route, because after I cloned to the SSD my crystaldiskmark scores are off. My sequential read and write are 497.5 read and 253.1 write. the 512K are 397.2 read and 245.4 write but than the 4k are 22.71 read and 45.24 write and 4k qd32 are 24.82 read and 48.63 write. Something seems off with the 4k speeds. I was using easeus for the clone.

 

I just recently cloned an HDD to an SSD and to be honest have run into problems since. Booting the drive is very temperamental. I recommend a clean install.

 

Which SSD?

While I haven't cloned from HDD to SSD, I have done multiple SSD to SSD clones and they all worked fine.

 

Did you align it? I recommend a clean install as well, but a lot of people are met with problems out of not knowing how to properly clone.

Pretty much what S.SubZero said. It's not locked to the hard drive, it's locked within the firmware. You will need installation media for Win 8 for a full installation, but you can clone the contents.

Maybe this will help: How to Migrate to a Solid-State Drive Without Reinstalling Windows

 

there are professional software (freeware) with migration support: Migrate OS to SSD securely with Aomei Partition Assistant - Partition Freeware?

 

Samsungs data migration software clones the whole drive. I did it for my windows 7 hdd. Should be the same for windows 8.

Sent from a Galaxy far, far away

You're easiest path would be to use Samsungs data migration software and install samsung magician to the ssd. Everything you need is there.

Sent from a Galaxy far, far away