When the hard drive of Joseph’s Samsung laptop began to make clicking noises, he thought it would be simple enough to make a backup image of his hard drive, install a shiny new solid-state drive, and put the backed-up image on his new drive. This didn’t work, and he’s stuck without Windows on his drive. Now he yearns for those long-ago days when computer manufacturers actually shipped copies of the software installed on computers with those computers.

He writes:

Two years ago I bought a Samsung R580 to use while earning my CS degree. I started to hear clicking from my hard drive and, since the laptop is out of warranty, I bought a new one.

As I am self described computer nerd, I went with an SSD. Smaller and more expensive sure, but worth it to me.

I ran the backup and restore utility, and made an image of my hard drive. I installed the new one and started the restore process. This is when I became aware that this is not allowed by Samsung (and possibly all Windows based laptops?)

Laptops no longer come with instillation DVD’s. Until now, I had assumed that the backup and restore function took care of this issue. Now it appears that this is not the case. In order to restore the OS onto a new drive, I would have to send it in to Samsung. And after a chat with Samsung’s support, it turns out that they do not allow SSD’s in MY computer.

Cloning the drive can be problematic and besides, I want a fresh install anyway.

Not sure what to do here, any help?

Any ideas for Joseph? As a thought exercise, let’s assume that he is only looking for methods that don’t involve software piracy.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.