[Bootable] Clone OS Drive in Windows 11, 10, 8, 7
How to migrate my operating system to another drive?
“Hello, I’m going to replace my hard disk drive with a newly bought 1TB SSD. The old hard disk contains Windows 10 operating system. I don’t want to reinstall Windows 10 on the SSD as it’s a little bit complicated for me. Is there anyone who can tell me how to migrate my OS to SSD without boot issue?”
Why clone OS drive to another drive?
Disk clone, including both data and OS disk clone, is a way to make an identical copy with one hard drive with another hard drive. This time, we’ll focus on OS disk clone. Different people clone the OS drive for different purposes. For example, if they bought an SSD, they’re likely to replace the old boot disk with the new SSD to enjoy better performance; over time, the storage space of the boot disk becomes insufficient and thus, people need to transfer the whole drive to another drive for more storage space; or sometimes, they just want to make a backup of their OS in case of any system corruption.
Best disk cloner to clone the OS drive
To migrate the operating system to another drive without reinstallation, you can clone the operating system hard drive via disk cloning freeware, Qiling Disk Master Professional. It can work under Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, XP, and Vista. Apart from cloning the entire system disk to SSD/HDD, it can clone only OS-related partitions (data partition not included). Now, download the cloning software and choose one way to migrate Windows 11, 10, 8, or 7 to a new drive based on your need.
Preparation work:
☞ If the target disk is new, please initialize it first; if it contains any files, remember to make a backup as during the hard drive clone, all files will be overwritten
☞Defragging HDD is advised before you transfer OS from HDD to SSD (omissible).
☞ Connect the new hard drive to your PC. For laptop users, a USB-SATA connection cable might be necessary.
☞ Ensure the capacity of the destination disk is not smaller than the used space of the current OS hard drive or the OS partition.
✎ Clone entire OS hard drive to another drive
If you want to send an exact copy of the entire old OS drive to the new drive, you can choose to clone the whole OS drive. Here, we take OS drive to SSD clone for example.
Step 1. Install and run the disk copy tool. In the main interface, click “Tools and utilities” and choose “Clone Disk”.
Step 2. Select your source disk.
Tips Now, you need to choose a method to clone your OS hard drive. Here I don't choose "Sector by sector Clone". clone only used space, allowing you to clone OS disk to a smaller one as long as the destination disk’s capacity is not smaller than the used space on the source disk.
Tick ▸Sector-by-Sector Clone – clone all sectors, requiring that the capacity of the destination disk be larger than or equal to the capacity of the source disk.
Step 3. Select your destination disk.
Step 4. In this window, you can edit partition or leave it alone.
Step 5. Click “Proceed” to execute the operation.
✎ Copy only OS related partitions
If your destination disk is not large enough to contain all data of the old hard drive, it’s a nice choice to clone Windows OS related partitions only to another drive.
Step 1. Click on "Migrate OS" on the "Tools and utilities" tab and click "Next".
Step 2. Select an unallocated space on the SSD as the destination location and click "Next".
PS.: If there is no unallocated space on the destination disk, it will ask you to delete all partitions on the disk. If you don’t want to delete all partitions on the selected disk, you can create an unallocated space in advance.
Step 3. Here you can resize the OS partition and change drive letter. Then, click on Next.
Step 4. Here you can review the result of copying Windows 10 OS drive. After confirmation, click Proceed to commit operation.
A Note that data on destination will be losted, and click Yes.
Note:
If you clone an MBR OS disk to a GPT disk or clone a GPT boot disk to an MBR disk, you should change Legacy to UEFI or UEFI to Legacy so you can boot into the system normally. UEFI is for GPT while Legacy is for MBR.
Summary
How to clone the OS drive to another drive in Windows 11, 10, 8, 7? It’s not complex once you find a right tool. In this post, Qiling Disk Master Standard and Professional editions are provided to help you deal with it easily. In only a few clicks, you can clone all the old hard drives or only the system-related partitions to another hard drive without any data loss. More than OS drive clone, the Qiling product also supports other features including app mover, SSD 4K alignment, and partition clone. If you’re a Server user and still want to try all the features, you can use the Server edition.
Related Articles
- 2 Easy Ways to Migrate Windows 11 to a New Computer
Have you installed Windows 11 on your old PC? After buying a new PC, you may want to migrate Windows 11 from the old computer to the new one instead of doing clean install again. How to achieve it? Find two easy solutions below. - Easiest Way to Clone Hard Drive in Windows 8, 8.1 to New HDD, SSD
Want to clone hard drive in Windows 8/8.1 but do not know how? This guide will tell you the easiest method to clone Windows 8/8.1 to new hard drive. - How to Migrate Windows 8/8.1 to SSD with Secure Boot
Want to migrate Windows 8 to SSD? You can find a powerful software to help you do this in this article. Read this article for more details. - Fixed: C Drive Is Getting Full Automatically in Windows Server 2012 R2
This article provides you with 2 solutions to fix C drive is getting full automatically in Windows Server 2012 R2.