How to clone or transfer OS from HDD to new SSD

[sredd21]

I bought the 240GB 530 series not to long ago and have yet been able to transfer anything from my HDD to it. I believe the initial place where I went wrong was that I put the SSD into my secondary memory bay, partitioned it, gave it a name, 'made it a part of the RAID array' (unsure what that means, but I did that I believe) and made it useable on my laptop. Because I did that I made the Intel Data Migration Software unusable somehow; so the intel support people told me that I should try some 3rd party cloning software like EaseUS. So I downloaded the EaseUS software, cleared a bunch of apps off of my HDD to slim it down to about 212 GB total. Now whenever I try to clone the HDD to the SSD using the EaseUS software it says 'insufficient disk space', when clearly I have enough space cleared (223 GB avail on the SSD).

What else can I do here? I'd just like to get my OS on to the new SSD and make my HDD the bulk secondary storage disk. Can I just take my HDD out, put in the SSD, start it up and install a fresh new win 8.1 on it... or do I need to transfer my stuff from the HDD?

Any help will be awesome, Thanks

[Silvia_L_Intel1]

Hello Rotfimo, thanks a lot for contacting us through the Intel Communities.

To be honest with you I think the reason why you were not able to use the Intel Data Migration Software was because you made the SSD part of the array, you not even have to create a RAID array in order to clone the HDD into the SSD.

Partitions are not necessary for this procedure.

So please remove the SSD from the array and try the software one more time.