Hard drive and OS solutions?

File: double-boil-your-failed-hard-drive-to-recover-its-precious-data-271107.jpg (21KB, 459x435px) Image search: [Google]

21KB, 459x435px

Hey /G/

Newfag to this board, but fuck it. I need help and while I think I have a solution I just want to make sure I have all of my bases covered.

A week ago I started receiving a "Hard Disk Error" message on my laptop. I managed to back up all of my important files but I didn't clone the drive.

Taking this as a sign of opportunity, I decided to upgrade to an SSD and managed to score a decent one on the cheap.

Here's the fucking kicker though: I don't have an OS installer. I will admit that I'm a lazy fuckbag because I haven't bothered to learn how to Linux, I don't have my Win8 install disk but for some reason I still have the sleeve the disk came in and what I think are the relevant numbers, and it might not be too late to clone the drive.

I have the gear for treating an internal drive as an external, so one of my possible solutions would be to clone the drive as an external then copy the image over to the new SSD.

Or I could find some way to torrent Win8.

Or I could nut up and find some way of downloading and installing Linux on the new SSD (which will probably never happen but just thought I'd say it in a desparate attemtp to make you happy).

Any advice?