AOMEI Partition Assistant
Answered: Can Samsung Data Migration Change Source Disk?
If you are wondering whether you can change source disk in Samsung Data Migration, read this post to get the answer. Besides, you can learn a flexible way to migrate data onto Samsung SSD drive.
By Emily / Updated on June 7, 2024
User case
“Months ago I purchased a Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SSD and moved my C drive from Seagate 500GB HDD to the SSD using the Samsung Data Migration tool. Then I have been using the old HDD to store games. But the HDD that is very slow when playing newer games. So I got a 960 Pro 1TB SSD and planned to used the migration tool to move all the content of my HDD onto it. But now I have run into the issue. The Samsung Data Migration would not let me change the source disk (defaulted to the 850 for whatever reason). Does anyone how to fix it?”
Can Samsung Data Migration change source disk?
Most users might have met the same issue when using Samsung Data Migration tool to transfer data from or to Samsung SSD drive. So, it is possible to change the source drive in the Samsung Data Migration tool? We can find the answer in the below screenshot from its user manual.
In the above picture, we can clearly see that the source disk (HDD or SSD) must contain the operating system installation. In other words, this software only supports migrating data on system disk to another Samsung SSD drive. It will not function on disks that lack an operating system installation.
Therefore, when you use Samsung Data Migration, only the boot disk can be selected, and you cannot change the source disk to some other data disks. Besides, if there are multiple operating systems installed on the PC (e.g. Windows 7 is installed on the C drive and Windows 8 is installed on the D drive), the cloned disk may not function properly. Moreover, you should note only the following Samsung SSD drive can be selected as the destination disk. So you cannot migrate files to other series of Samsung SSD drives, not to mention, other brands of SSD.
Free alternative to Samsung Data Migration: change source drive easily
When the disk you plan to clone is not the system disk and you cannot change source disk in Samsung Data Migration tool, you can turn to an alternative, which can migrate data more flexibly without such limitations. Then free partition manager named AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is a great choice. Better than Samsung Data Migration, it comes with the following advantages:
» You can change the MBR-based source disk to another MBR data hard disk easily.
» Clone hard disk to all series of Samsung SSD drive and other branded SSD or HDD.
» Enable you to clone large disk to smaller disk with the “Clone Disk Quickly” method. And clone BitLocker drive via the “Sector-by-Sector Clone”.
Same as the Samsung Data Migration, this software is also compatible with Windows 11/10/8/7 (32-bit/64-bit). If you want to clone hard disk to Samsung SSD drive in Server operating system, try AOMEI Partition Assistant Server instead. Now, you can download the freeware and learn how to clone hard drive step by step.
Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant, 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 and click "Next".
Step 3. Select another drive as the destination 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 improve the reading and writing speed of the SSD.
Step 6. You can preview the disk cloning operation by viewing the "Pending Operations". To commit the "Pending Operations", please click "Apply" and "Proceed".
When it is done, everything on the source disk 2 will be moved to the destination source disk 3, and the programs/applications can load and run as they do in the source disk.
The above demonstration is cloning a data disk to another disk. If you are planning to clone system disk, you had better upgrade to AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, since it can clone system from MBR to GPT, GPT to MBR and GPT to GPT disk while the free Standard version only supports cloning data disk from MBR to MBR disk.
Summary
So, now you must get the answer to “can Samsung Data Migration change source disk”. When you are planning to clone non-system disk and cannot change source drive in Samsung Data Migration tool, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is a nice alternative. Besides cloning hard disk, it is also able to clone parition to another hard drive, convert disk to MBR or GPT partition style without deleting partitions, convert NTFS file system to FAT32 without formatting, etc.
