Migrate OS from One SSD to Another with Free Software

Why do I migrate OS from one SSD to another?

Recently, I got an SSD as birthday gift from one of my cousins. So I have 2 SSD and 1 HDD in hand now. I was considering migrating OS from old SSD to this new SSD to experience better performance. Besides, my little sister asked me to improve her laptop long time ago. I guess I could transfer her operating system from her old HDD to this redundant SSD after I move my OS and reformat disk. Whatever, that is the thing I will think about later. Well, the question how to move OS from one SSD to another drive comes into my mind now.

Ways to migrate Windows from one SSD to another

I searched on the website and luckily find two acceptable ways for my OS. I am running Windows 7 and was suggested to create a system image backup with Windows 7 Backup and Restore and then restore the image to my new SSD drive. This might be the easiest way because it needs no assistant software but one USB drive, so I decided to try it first.

Here come the details. I opened Backup and Restore from Control Panel and clicked the Create a system image link to backup system to my USB drive. This process was quite smooth and took not that long.

I connected my new SSD with my PC via SATA to USB cable. I ran into problem when I try to restore the system image from the USB external drive to my new SSD. One error message reads “The system restore failed. No disk that can be used for recovering, the system disk cannot be found.” appeared in the pop-up window. I guess I probably did something wrong and then Google this problem. Turns out this utility fails many users like me. That’s why so many people searching for alternative to Windows 7 Backup and Restore.

Lucky enough, I found someone else copied OS from one SSD to another successfully before with AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. It is free for my OS as well as Windows 10/8/8.1/XP/Vista and all this operations would be done within a few clicks according to the author. Anyway, I made up my mind to give it shot. The first thing to do is download this software. Turns out it has no bundled adware as its official website says. Following part illustrates specific steps that I migrate OS from SSD to SSD with AOMEI Partition Assistant. I backed up files that I care most ahead of time just in case.

Steps to migrate OS from one SSD to another

Step1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. Click Migrate OS to SSD in the left pane.

Step2. Things become easy with this wizard. The left is to follow the wizard. Select my new SSD as the target drive.

Step3. It provides an option for me to adjust OS partition in my new SSD and a note to pay attention to. This is very thoughtful.

Step4. Now I get a virtual result of migrating OS. This will come into reality only if I click Apply.

Note:

It requires operating this task in Pre OS mode after I click Apply button since I was doing something to my system.

I removed my old SSD and boot OS from the new SSD successfully. Alternative option is to change boot settings in BIOS. I didn’t follow that path because I have to improve my sister’s laptop with this SSD as I said before. Frankly speaking, I have to admit AOMEI Partition Assistant is quite helpful on this issue. I guess I can do more things with this handy software, like partition USB drive, merge unallocated space to partition, quick partition, and format partition and so on. I guess I will try each option of this software in my spare time.