Here comes a Windows transfer tool to help you easily and simply transfer Windows to new hard drive (SSD or HDD) without reinstalling.
“I have a laptop with Windows 10 installed on an SSD. The capacity of SSD is about 200GB and it is almost full. I want to know how to move Windows 10 operating system, kinds of files, apps to a new & larger SSD rather than reinstalling OS and programs on the new SSD from scratch. Any advice will be appreciated!”
If you transfer OS & apps to new storage drive, like SSD by copy & paste method, you can find that OS and some apps unable to boot normally since the boot files become invalid after pasting to the new location. Therefore, you need a reliable and professional Windows migration tool. Here I would like to introduce AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional (PA Pro) out of those following reasons:
✔ You can free download the demo version of AOMEI Partition Assistant to have a try!
Now, let’s see how to use the Windows transfer tool to move Windows and all other things from one disk to another.
Step 1. Connect the new disk to your PC. Install and run the tool. Click “Clone Disk” in the right menu.
Step 2. Select one between the two options (the first way is recommended) and click “Next”.
The differences:
Clone method | Clone Disk Quickly | Sector-by-Sector Clone |
Clone scope | Clone only used space | Clone every sector |
Capacity Requirement about Target Disk | Should not be smaller than the used space of source disk | Shall not be smaller than the capacity of the source disk |
Time spent | Less | More |
Suitable conditions | Clone to a smaller disk | Clone disk with bad sector; clone BitLocker encrypted disk |
Step 3. Choose the current OS disk as source disk and click “Next”.
Step 4. Select the new hard drive as destination disk. Then, click “Next”.
Step 5. Here you can adjust partition size on target disk.
Step 6. A Note shows how to boot OS from the destination disk will pop up. Keep it in mind and click “Finish”
Step 7. Then, you’ll be back to the home interface. Click “Apply” and “Proceed” to commit the operation.
✍ Notes: ► This operation won’t damage the data on the source system disk. You can keep the old system disk as a backup disk in case of some events, like system crash; or erase all data on the old disk to reclaim disk space. ► PA Pro can also complete many other operations related to disk & partition, like copying partition and converting dynamic disk into basic. ► PA Pro is compatible with Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7, XP, and Vista (64bit and 32bit). If you want to manage partition and disk in Windows Server 2022/2019/2016/2012 (R2)/2008 (R2/2003, you can use AOMEI Partition Assistant Server.
After the Windows transfer tool migrates Windows and all other things to the new drive, you may wonder how to boot OS.
If there is only one disk bay on your laptop, replace the old drive with the cloned new disk; And you may need screwdriver to assist you.
If you plan to keep the old hard drive and the new one at the same time, you need to change boot order to boot from the new drive:
▪Reboot your computer and press the functional key to enter BIOS setup while the first screen appears.
▪Choose “Change boot order” and change the new disk to the top of the listed devices.
▪Save and exit the BIOS setup. And your PC will boot from the cloned disk.
Note: If you migrate Windows from MBR to GPT or GPT to MBR, you need to change boot mode from Legacy to UEFI, or UEFI to Legacy.