4) Start the PC and press the Delete button to enter BIOS setup. Define the DVD drive as the first boot device. Place in the drive the Windows Repair Disk and restart your PC. You will be asked to press any key in order to boot from the CD or DVD. Do it. On the dialogues that show up, choose your keyboard’s layout, then go to “Troubleshoot” > “Advanced Options” > “System Image Recovery.”

5) Windows will search your drives for the system image you created on Step 2. Confirm the selection and go to the next screen. Check the option to format and repartition disks and press the Exclude Disks button. On the dialogue that appears select all the drives you do NOT want reformatted, the drives containing your personal documents, videos, photos, music etc. Any drive that is not selected, will be erased and reformatted, therefore make sure you leave unchecked only the SSD drive.

6) After Windows finishes restoring the image to the SSD drive, it will restart the PC. Enter again BIOS setup and define your new SSD as the first boot option. Start your PC and see if Windows works and everything is fine with the restoration. Then you can reconnect the old drive to the motherboard, make a quick format to erase everything, give it any letter you like and keep using it for your data.

You can now close the PC case, put the PC at its normal place, and enjoy! You may also like to check this post, if Windows cannot recognize your system image backup, and this one if your Windows partition leaves unallocated space that you cannot merge.

If you don’t have an SSD drive, check Amazon reviews, get one, and enjoy!