Yes, and Yes.

First, the extra RAM. That's a very good idea and will lengthen the life of
your SSD drive as well as creating a faster operating environment. W10 is
very good at picking up new hardware additions, so just plug it in, you
should have no problems. Try to keep your fingers dry and away from the
electrical contacts when handling the RAM stick.

Secondly the system image--also a very good idea--in fact an even better
idea is to make a second system image after you've installed all your
software and made the necessary W10 settings (the out-of-box settings are
not yet as user-friendly as I would like). I think a System Image is
preferable to cloning the HD, as W10 recovery options are easier and better
suited for that. But either is OK.

To make a system Image, just open Control Panel/Backup and Restore (Windows
7), and follow the  prompts to set up a backup. When you get to the near
final step, don't forget to tick the box at the foot which creates a System
Image. What else (if anything) you want to include in the backup is up to
you.

You could choose the laptop's 2nd hard drive, or, safer, a plugin external
hard drive  as the backup target. (You can't use a USB memory stick for
this purpose).

(ASIDE: Microsoft originally dropped this very useful facility from the
early W10, but have now brought it back in, albeit with the old Windows7
name which fools everybody!--it's the old W7 method but works OK on W10).

There's another, much simpler way to manually create a System Image which I
found worked particularly well up till now:


1. Copy the following command and paste it into Notepad or whatever text
editor you use. You will have to change the Target address J: to whatever
letter your backup drive is.

wbadmin start backup -backupTarget:J: -include:C: -allCritical
pause

2. Save the text file to Desktop and replace the .txt extension with .bat.
Name it whatever you like--I call mine Sysimage.bat.
3. When you want to make your system image backup, just right-click the.bat
file, select "run as Administrator" and away it goes. When it asks you to
proceed, just type y and hit Enter.

Until the last couple of weeks, that's the way I've always done it for W10.
...BUT recently it starts, then comes up with a report that it can't locate
the Backup Engine. Whether that's due to recent W10 updates or  something's
awry with my beloved computer, I'm not sure. So whether this method will
work for you remains to be seen. No harm is done if it doesn't work. Maybe
it's something to do with the re-introduction of the old but slower W7
method. Googling the problem hasn't turned up any useful answers, short of
checking that a few Backup services are turned on (which they are).

Any ideas about this, anyone?

Don Penlington


On Sun, May 1, 2016 at 10:00 PM, John Clemence <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I have just bought an HP 250 G4 Laptop, Intel Core i5-6200U 2.3GHz, 4GB
> RAM, 128GB SSD, 15.6 HD, DVDRW, Intel HD, WIFI, Bluetooth, Webcam,
> Windows 10 Home 64 <http://www.ebuyer.com/product/735558>_._
>
> I would like to know if it is possible to clone the hard drive before I
> load any programs or applications. I just thought if I did this, it
> would be easy to revert to the cloned drive, (or the original drive if I
> replaced it with the cloned one), if I encountered any problems.
>
> I have also bought another 4GB ram which I can add to give me 8GB, can I
> simply plug the new RAM in the vacant slot in the hope that it will
> recognise and make any configuration changes automatically? Not sure if
> I need to take any precautions when handling the RAM.
>
> I would appreciate any advice if you kind guys have time to respond.
>
> Many thanks and kind regards,
>
> John.
>
>
>                          PCSOFT's List Owners:
>                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
>                        Mark Rode<[log in to unmask]>
>
>

                          PCSOFT's List Owners:
                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
                        Mark Rode<[log in to unmask]>