Computer hard drive question

To see how your machine is activated. Right click the windows button and select “system”. Next scroll down to and click change product key or update your edition. This screen will show you edition ie Windows 10 Home and activation. It probably says “windows is activated with a digital license” which means Microsoft has details of your system on their activation servers and you can reinstall same edition of windows as often as you like. If not you log into your machine using a Microsoft account and it will create a digital activation

 

It was purchased used from a computer place so I don't have any windows software with it.

 

You can download the Windows media creation tool for free from M$

 

The Samsung EVO in post #3 will work? I think I'll try the adapter and software that are mentioned. Best Buy has the drive in stock for $160.

 

To add on what others are saying, if this is mainly the storage drive, pretty any slower M.2 drive would do, as they are and will be faster than 2.5" SSD, any day.
However, if this will be his main drive, ie software and read and game, you will want to up the drive to a better and capable drive, not saying the 970 EVO Plus is bad (I got the 2TB on sale and gave it to my co-worker for his new laptop for new position), but this is on sale today (

$170 SK hynix Gold P31 2TB PCIe NVMe Gen3 M.2 2280 Internal SSD, Up to 3500MB/S, Compact, Form Factor SSD - Internal Solid State Drive with 128-Layer NAND Flash

DRIVE), and if I would choose, get the 2TB as it should last your son a while, Now, if he is asking again in a year, you might wanna check what he's got on it....
But if you are concerned about price, I would say the 1TB should be more than enough for a few years....