Jack, The backup disks may be creating an image or they may simply be the OEMs restore to factory discs that they no longer send with computers, I don't know what you are selecting. Assuming you have taken the trouble to setup a profile and remove the bundled crap software from your PC (no operating system found :-P ) you will want to make a system image using the Windows backup tool or using Clonezilla. I have not played with 8 but 7 has a backup feature built in that makes a system image. In 8 they apparently moved it around.
http://www.itworld.com/consumerization-it/333466/create-system-image-backup-windows-8s-hidden-backup-tool Make a system backup (not a documents backup) to an external drive, 8 is kinda bloated so I wouldn't recommend spanning it over DVDs. This will most likely only restore to that hardware i.e. motherboard. Restoring into a VM is probably going to be difficult if even possible since the hardware is removed in a way from the Windows installation and may require sysprep /generalize before turning off the laptop and making an image with Clonezilla. Generalize will bring you back to the whole what do you want to name the computer create a user wizard you see when you first buy a laptop. This will not erase the previously created users but it will mess you up a bit since you are forced to make another user and other possible painful issues. I would strongly recommend creating a backup before syspreping the computer if you even want to try this. So assuming you don't want to be bothered with the complexity of putting 8 in a VM which an OEM license may not legally allow: Now that you made a backup using Clonezilla or Windows put the new SSD in and restore from your backup to see if this actually worked. Windows should generally be ok with restoring and booting an SSD. From the bit that I understand changing hard drives will not force a Windows reactivation your only snag may be drivers understanding the SSD but I have not run into this problem the few times I have done this. Now install Linux as a dual boot. Matthias Johnson
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