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Upgrade to Larger Hard Drive without Reinstalling Windows 11/10/8/7
If you find your old hard drive has not enough space for daily use, follow this guide to easily upgrade to a larger hard drive without reinstalling Windows.
By Jonna Updated on November 15, 2024
Upgrade to Larger Hard Drive without Reinstalling Windows
If your videos, images, music, and other files are filling up your disk, it's time to consider upgrading to a larger hard drive. But are you willing to reinstall Windows 11/10/8/7 when upgrading your system drive? Reinstalling Windows is time-consuming and requires reconfiguring your system and reinstalling all your apps and games.
Fortunately, using hard drive cloning software allows you to upgrade to a larger drive without reinstalling Windows or losing any data. Cloning is much easier than a fresh install, making it a hassle-free way to expand your storage. Let's learn how to replace your C drive with a larger one without reinstalling Windows.
What do I Need to Upgrade a Hard Drive?
There are a few things that you need to prepare for upgrading hard drive without reinstalling Windows.
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💾A larger HDD or SSD |
Use it to store all your cloned system files and data from the old hard drive. |
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⛓A SATA-to-USB cable |
Use to connect both old drive and new HDD/SSD to computer. |
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👔Reliable cloning software |
Here we recommend AOMEI Backupper Professional, which lets you clone to a larger hard drive without reinstalling everything. |
1. A larger HDD or SSD
Before you decide to buy a large hard drive, there is something you need to know first. You need to check what kind of hard drive fits on your computer, connection slot, size, etc.
If you want to upgrade to a hard drive larger than 2TB, you need to check if your motherboard supports UEFI boot. You can boot your computer into BIOS to see if there is a UEFI mode besides Legacy mode. You can also consult with the Motherboard provider.
As you may know, a disk initialized as MBR (master boot record) partition style has a 2TB disk size limitation. A disk larger than 2TB needs to be initialized as GPT (GUID partition table) if you want to use its full capacity. A GPT disk can only boot using UEFI boot mode.
2. Cables or tools to connect both hard drives to your computer
If you have a desktop computer, then you need a SATA 3 cable and power cable to install the new drive on your computer. Most of the desktops, if not all, have one or more extra power cables.
If you want to upgrade your laptop hard drive, then you should check if your laptop has an extra drive bay to install a secondary hard drive. If not, you should prepare a SATA-to-USB cable to connect your larger hard drive to your laptop via a USB port.
3. A copy of reliable cloning software
For the best disk cloning software, AOMEI Backupper Professional is strongly recommended for its simplicity and ease of use. It offers a "sector by sector clone" method which helps you make an intact duplication of the source hard drive. Besides, it provides an option to adjust the partition size on the destination disk so it will not leave unallocated space on the cloned hard drive.
1. Migrate OS from HDD to SSD without Reinstallation: AOMEI Backupper Professional allows seamless OS migration from HDD to SSD, preserving data, apps, and settings without needing to reinstall Windows, offering faster performance and improved boot speeds.
2. Clone Disk with MBR to GPT Conversion: Clone hard drives with AOMEI Backupper, supporting conversion between MBR and GPT partition styles, ensuring compatibility and system stability when upgrading or replacing disks with different partition formats.
3. Clone from Small Disks to Larger Ones (and Vice Versa): Clone smaller disks to larger ones, or the reverse, with AOMEI Backupper. The software adjusts partitions and optimizes space usage, ensuring data integrity and efficient transfer regardless of disk size differences.
AOMEI BackupperEasiest hard drive clone software for Windows PC.
Steps to Clone to Larger Hard Drive
After you get things ready, you can follow the steps below to replace C drive with larger SSD/HDD without reinstalling Windows 10/8/7.
Step 1: Connect the new hard drive to your computer internally or externally. And open AOMEI Backupper.
Step 2: In the Home screen of AOMEI Backupper, click Clone and select Disk Clone.
- Notes:✎...
- If you only want to migrate OS to the larger drive, you can select System Clone instead.
Step 3: In the next screen, select your original hard drive as the Source Disk by clicking it and then click Next.
Step 4: Click on the larger hard drive which you intend to replace the old one to set it as Destination Disk, and then click Next.
Step 5: To avoid unallocated space after cloning, you can enable the "Edit Partitions" feature to fully use this space.
Step 6: Click Start Clone to start the clone.
The cloning process will take an hour or so, depending on how much data that needs transferring. During that time, you can still use your computer to watch a movie or do some other stuff. If you want to clone the HDD to a smaller SSD, you should not tick the Sector by sector clone, so it will only clone the used sectors. Besides, it provides an option to SSD Alignment to optimize for SSD.
When the clone is done, you can reboot your computer to BIOS and set the cloned drive as the first boot device. If you upgrade to a larger hard drive for a laptop, then you need to shut down the laptop and replace the old drive with the cloned one.
- ★Tip:
- To clone the MBR disk to the GPT disk without converting its partition style on the system disk, please upgrade to advanced editions.
FAQs about Upgrade to Larger Hard Drive
1. Can I upgrade my hard drive to an SSD without reinstalling Windows?
2. What is the difference between MBR and GPT partition styles, and why does it matter?
3. Do I need a special cable to connect a new hard drive to my computer?
Conclusion
That's all about how to upgrade laptop hard drive using the best cloning software AOMEI Backupper.
Except for the cloning feature, you can also use this software to back up your old hard drive and then restore it to a larger one for data migration. Also, you can use it to make a bootable media and then use it to boot your PC to complete the restoring process. This is helpful when you cannot connect both drives to your computer at the same time.
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