How to Clone MBR HDD to GPT SSD without Reinstalling

If you want to get your old computer running faster, installing a solid state drive (SSD) to replace the original drive is the best upgrade that can be simply realized. For old computers, they usually use an MBR disk. You need to clone the system partition (C: drive) along with the system reserved partition (if there is one) to make the cloned SSD boot successfully.

Usually, a brand new SSD has not been initialized. If you initialize the SSD as GPT, you need to make sure your computer supports UEFI boot mode before trying to clone MBR HDD to GPT SSD.

What do you need to clone HDD to SSD with MBR?

To clone MBR to SSD, you need:

• A computer with Windows 11/10/8/7 installed on an MBR disk.

• An SSD that is larger than the used space on your original hard drive.

• Cables or SATA-to-USB adapter to connect the SSD.

• Professional software that is able to clone HDD to SSD with MBR.

For the cloning software, you can use AOMEI Backupper Professional, which does a good job to copy MBR from one disk to another.

AOMEI Backupper

Easy Hard Drive and SSD Cloning Software

• It allows you to clone OS only, clone the entire disk or a particular partition.

• It fully supports MBR and GPT disks. You can clone MBR disk to GPT or clone GPT disk to MBR without any obstacles.

• It clones only used sectors on the source disk by default, making it possible to clone a larger drive to a smaller drive.

• The cloning process will run in the background, so you can use other programs at the same time.

Free Download
Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7

100% Secure

Don't hesitate to download AOMEI Backupper on your computer.

How to clone MBR to GPT SSD step by step in Windows 11/10/8/7

With AOMEI Backupper, you can clone the entire hard drive and the cloned SSD will be bootable. If your SSD is smaller than the original hard drive, the program will automatically adjust the partition size on the SSD to fit the entire drive. Now follow the steps below:

💡Important: Make sure your system is 64-bit and your computer supports UEFI boot mode before cloning.

1. Connect the GPT SSD to your computer and make sure it is detected.

2. Install and run AOMEI Backupper. Under the Clone tab, select Disk Clone to clone the entire MBR drive.

3. At the next screen, select the original MBR disk as source disk.

4. Select the GPT SSD as destination disk.

5. Tick SSD Alignment to improve SSD performance. Click Start Clone to run the clone.

Notes:

• "Edit partitions" allows you to resize partitions on the target SSD. You can choose "Add unused space to all partitions" or "Manually adjust partition size" based on your need. 
• Select "Sector by sector clone" if you want to clone every sector on the source drive, whether it is used or not, even if it’s a blank sector or a logically bad sector.
• You can also create a bootable media to clone hard drive without loading Windows.

Then AOMEI Backupper will clone MBR to SSD in the background. In the meantime, you can still use the computer to do your work.

After cloning

After the clone is done, you can boot from the cloned SSD.

• Shut down your computer.
• Replace the original MBR disk with the cloned GPT disk.
• Boot into BIOS and change legacy to UEFI boot mode.

• Save and exit.

If the SSD boots fine, then you can wipe the original hard drive.

FAQs about cloning MBR HDD to GPT SSD

Conclusion

That’s all for how to copy MBR to SSD. As you can see, AOMEI Backupper can help you clone MBR disk to GPT SSD with no effort. Besides cloning, AOMEI Backupper also offers various backup options for you to backup your new SSD. You can backup system, entire SSD, individual partition or selected files according to your needs. Just give it a try by yourself now!