It does not come with a SATA cable. If you are installing it in your laptop, you generally install it in-place of your hard drive. I would suggest a USB-to-SATA cable to clone the hard drive onto the SSD first, before trying to install it into your laptop. You will not need the USB-to-SATA cable after cloning is complete. The drive comes with a CD containing the transfer software, but I would suggest downloading it from Samsung's website instead. Do not use the software that comes with the USB-to-SATA cable, use Samsung's.
It will not change your installation to Windows 8. You will have all the files (OS, Programs, and DATA) just as you had before the clone.
VisionTek - Solid State Drive Installation and File Transfer Kit - Black
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