How to Replacing Hard Drive on HP Pavilion Without Losing Data (Latest)

Benefits of replacing hard drive on HP Pavilion

To boost the performance of your HP laptop, especially if it's been in use for a while, upgrading the hard drive is the most effective solution. Whether you're transitioning from HDD to SSD or upgrading to a larger, superior SSD, you'll experience numerous benefits of HP laptop hard drive replacement.

▌Replacing hard drive on HP Pavilion from HDD to SSD offers:

▌Upgrading from one SSD to a better and larger SSD provides:

If you have an old hard drive in your HP Pavilion computer with important stuff on it and don't want the hassle of reinstalling everything, it is better to know how to replace hard drive in HP Pavilion without losing your data. This article will show you the easiest way.

Step-by-step guidance for HP Pavilion hard drive replacement

This part will display the knack of replacement stage-by-stage. You can follow it and to do the HP laptop hard drive replacement.

Stage 1. Make some preparations

To successfully replace the hard drive on HP Pavilion, you need to do a few things before getting started.

✍ Choose the right new drive: First, pick out a new drive that suits your needs. Think about what's important to you: better speed, more storage, or a bit of both. Besides, please make sure the drive you choose is compatible with your laptop as there are different types.

✍ Get a SATA to USB connector: If your laptop has only one drive slot, you'll need to connect your new drive to a USB port. You can do this with a SATA to USB cable or by using an SSD enclosure.

✍ Prepare the screwdriver: To actually switch out the hard drive inside your HP laptop, you'll need a screwdriver that fits the screws in your laptop.

✍ A powerful data migration tool: When migrating data from an old hard drive to a new one without the hassle of reinstalling the Windows OS and applications, dependable disk cloning software becomes crucial.

AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional is one such option worth considering to help you easily do HP laptop hard drive replacement. It not only helps you avoid the tedious process of reinstalling everything but also saves you time and effort due to its fast data transfer speeds and user-friendly interface. Furthermore, it can be a useful tool for ongoing computer management tasks after the cloning process.

With these preparations in place, you are now ready to proceed with the change hard drive on HP Pavilion laptop.

Stage 2. Check the hard drive and your laptop

☛ Clear unnecessary data: As a first step, consider removing any files or programs you no longer need from your current hard disk. This will help reduce its size to fit the SSD drive comfortably.

☛ Connect the SSD securely: Connect the SSD to your laptop and ensure that it's recognized properly. In some cases, you may require an external USB to SATA adapter, dock, or enclosure for this task.

☛ Create data backup: It's essential to back up any important files you wish to keep on the SSD drive. This step is crucial, as all data on the old drive will be wiped during the cloning process.

☛ Check compatibility: If considering the migration of an MBR system HDD to a GPT SSD, please ensure your motherboard supports UEFI boot mode. This transition from BIOS legacy to UEFI boot mode is crucial for a smooth cloning process, as neglecting it could lead to booting issues with the new disk. Thank you for your attention to this important detail.

Stage 3. Start cloning

Once you've confirmed the completion of the aforementioned steps, let's proceed with the HP laptop hard drive replacement using AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional.

Step 1. Run the installed AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. Click “Clone” in the top menu, and select "Clone Disk" feature.

Step 2. Then choose the clone method to copy the selected disk and hit the “Next” button. If you are cloning a large hard disk to a smaller one, choose the first option, please.

Step 3. Select a destination disk to contain all data from the source disk, and click “Next”.

If the destination disk is an SSD drive, you can click the “Optimize the performance of SSD” option during the process, which can help make 4K alignment on SSD partitions.

Step 4. You can adjust partition size in this window if you choose “Clone Disk Quickly” above. After everything is done, hit on “Next” to continue.

1. Clone without resizing partitions: All partitions will be cloned to the target disk as the original partition size. It is available when the target disk is large enough to hold all partitions on the source disk.
2. Fit partitions to the entire disk: All partitions will be cloned to the target disk and take up its full capacity according to the original partition size proportion.
3. Edit partitions on this disk: You can change every partition size on the target disk as you need.

Step 5. A note will appear to tell you how to boot from the cloned disk. You can read it carefully, and then click “Finish”.

Step 6. Click “Apply” to commit the pending operation.

In case of "cloned SSD won’t boot", kindly please follow the steps if you are cloning the system hard drive to another.

Step 1. Restart your computer, long press the "F2" key (perhaps other keys like DEL), and access the BIOS environment.

Step 2. Change the boot order and set the cloned hard drive as the first boot drive in BIOS.

Step 3. Press "Enter". Now you should boot the computer from the cloned hard disk successfully.

Note: If you want to clone only the C drive or boot-related partitions to another hard drive, its “Migrate OS to SSD" feature can be helpful. It only transfers the OS partition to another hard drive and allows you to boot from it smoothly.

Stage 4. Securely boot from cloned new hard drive

Once the cloning process is complete, it's important to boot up from the newly cloned destination disk.

Step 1. Power down your laptop and disconnect the SSD drive, power cable, and any other connected cables.

Step 2. Open the back cover of your laptop. Remove the old hard drive from its slot and install the cloned SSD drive. Secure it in place using a screwdriver.

Step 3. Attach the back panel that covers the drive and screw it back on. Then restart your laptop. During the initial startup screen, press and hold specific keys to access the BIOS environment. Or you can directly click “Tools” > “UEFI BIOS Boot Options Manager” to directly access to BIOS.

Step 4. Navigate to the Boot tab in the BIOS menu. Check the boot list and use the arrow keys to move the cloned SSD to the top of the boot priority list.

Step 5. Save the changes you've made in the BIOS setup utility and exit. Your laptop will now successfully boot from the newly cloned solid-state drive.

Bottom line

Replacing hard drive in HP Pavilion can be easy by following this guidance. As we can see, AOMEI Partition Assistant plays a part when cloning, which makes the process easy and convenient. If you need to extend drive space, check your disk health, or migrate OS only, you can rely on it as well. For Windows Server users, this software also offers the Server Edition.