“The hard drive crashed on my HP Laptop. (model 15-ba053nr) How do I get this new drive loaded with Windows 10 and all the necessary drivers since I can't clone a crashed drive? Thank you for your time.”
Answer This Question
1-1 of 1 Answer
You can go to the Microsoft website and download the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool (just type "windows 10 media creation tool" in their search box and follow the appropriate links). You can download either an ISO file for burning onto DVD, or you can create a bootable Flash drive directly. You'll most likely want to use the 64-bit version since almost all laptops built in the past 8-10 years support the 64-bit instruction set. Install your WD SSD (500GB is about the minimum I'd recommend, 1TB is better - both for capacity obviously, but also to extend the expected life of the drive through increased "spreading out" writes to the memory cells) and boot your laptop off of either the DVD or Flash drive you created. The installer takes ~15 minutes or so to finish its job, and then will walk you through various configuration options. Once that's done, most of your drivers will be installed automatically. You'll then need to do a Windows Update to pick up some missing drivers, and you may also need to go to the HP website to pick up any odd-ball drivers that Microsoft itself doesn't have (very, very few of those actually). Be sure to match your Windows version (Home or Pro) with what your laptop originally shipped with as that's what the system-integrated license will directly support. If you change versions, you may need to purchase a separate license key from Microsoft of a verified reseller. Best Buy also sells a retail packaged version of Windows 10, but that's really for systems that never had Windows 10 installed before and don't have system-integrated licenses (or a COA sticker on the bottom with the activation key). Good luck!
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.