How to Clone Windows Installation to an SSD without Boot Issues?

Why clone Windows installation to SSD?

As we all know, the read and write speed of SSD is faster than HDD, and as the price of SSD has fallen in recent years, more and more users hope to upgrade hard drives to SSDs in order to make their PCs achieve better performance.

But when you try to switch a new SSD for your PC, you might feel frustrated for the tedious system reinstallation and file-moving task. Actually, you don’t have to. Now lots of people turn to a very convenient way: cloning Windows 10/11 to SSD. It helps you to transfer OS to another disk without reinstalling.

Next, you can follow this tutorial that will guide you how to perform Windows 10/11 clone disk in details.

Freeware for cloning Windows installation to SSD

To migrate OS to SSD, picking up a reliable and powerful cloning tool can help you a lot. I highly recommend you to use AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. It has the following advantages:

☞ Clone the hard disk without losing data.
☞ Graphical user interface makes it clear to users. Even if you don’t have a computing background, you can follow the instructions to complete the cloning operation independently.
☞ Two different cloning methods are provided: cloning the entire sector of the hard disk or cloning the used space of the hard disk.
☞ The cloned hard disk can be successfully booted.

Not only is it loved by many users for its outstanding features, it is also completely free, which is why I recommend it. 

Tip: In addition to cloning disk, you can also use the Migrate OS to SSD feature to migrate the system partition to SSD.

How to clone Windows 11/10/8/7 installation to an SSD?

✍ Before the process

• Connect your SSD to your computer or laptop. And you may need a USB-SATA adapter.

• Ensure the SSD is initialized. And it is supposed to have enough unallocated space to store the system.

• If you need to clone MBR disk to GPT SSD, GPT to GPT, GPT to MBR, please upgrade to the Professional edition.

Step 1. Open the installed AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, click "Clone" in the main interface, and select "Clone Disk".

Step 2. Choose the hard disk that you need to clone as the source disk like SSD and click "Next".

Step 3. Select the destination disk to store the data on the source disk, and then click "Next".

Step 4. Then, you can check the source and destination disk in the next window or change to "Sector to Sector clone", and click the "Confirm" button to continue if there is no problem.

Here, you can also click the "Settings" button to adjust the partition size on the destination disk or tick "4k alignment" to Optimize the performance of SSD if the target disk is an SSD drive. 

Tip: If you want to clone Windows to a smaller drive, the "Clone without resizing partitions"  button will be greyed out. Then, a Note about how to boot OS from the destination disk will pop up. Read and keep it in mind.

Step 5. After returning to the main interface, check the pending operation and click "Apply" and "Proceed" to commit the operation.

Then wait for a whole, the system and OS-related data will be cloned to the SSD.

Boot computer from the SSD

After cloning, you can shut down your computer and put the SSD on the disk bay to change the original hard drive. And on account of capacity of SSD, some people will wipe the HDD to store applications and data, you may need to enter BIOS to change the boot priority to the SSD. Here are the steps:

1. Restart your PC, tap the BIOS key to enter BIOS setup. 

2. Choose "Boot" tab, and select "Change boot order".

3. Use arrow keys to move the SSD to the first position of the listed drives.

Conclusion

Do you see it? This is how to clone Windows installation to SSD. No matter what your purpose is to clone Windows, selecting AOMEI Partition Assistant will definitely not let you down. If you want to use it in Windows Server, be sure to use AOMEI Partition Assistant Server.