Move Windows 10/11 Hard Drive to a New Computer (Worry-Free)

Help: Can I move a hard drive with Windows 10 to another computer?

Are you in the same situation as this user? Don’t worry! This post will help you transfer hard drive to new computer without reinstalling Windows 10/11.

Unlike cloning Windows 10/11 hard drive on the same computer, when you move your Windows 10/11 operating system to a new computer you’ll need to consider a variety of important factors, like the Windows activation license and the hardware of your old computer - all the relevant questions will be answered in the following article.

Can I move my Windows installation drive to new computer?

When buying a new computer, many users would prefer adding old hard drive to the new computer to doing a fresh install so that they can have all their data and old OS on the new device. Whilst a fresh install is not very complicated, it can take a long time to reinstall all of your old applications and drivers after OS reinstallation. 

The main advantage of directly moving hard drive to new PC is that you don’t need to reinstall any applications, drivers, or copy your data as everything is migrated across at the same time.

It might sound easy to move Windows 10 from your old hard drive to your new PC but don’t be fooled, it isn’t! You will come across both software and hardware issues unless you use specialist Windows 10 migration tool. Following are two important issues you should take care when performing hard drive transfer to a new computer:

▶ Different hardware types

When moving your Windows installation, you have to consider potential hardware compatibility issues – one of the main issues you need to consider is the system driver. If your new system has identical hardware to the old one, then the process is extremely simple. You can simply add the old hard drive to the new system and it will boot without any issues.

However, if the two computers don’t have identical hardware (which is usually the case) then you will encounter  “move HDD to new computer in Windows 10 won’t boot” error due to driver incompatibility, and your Windows 10 OS will need to be activated again.

▶ Different license types (Microsoft Windows)

Windows activation is another problem you will need to contend with, even when you have solved the hardware issues we mentioned above. If you don’t want to purchase a new Windows 10 license from Microsoft, then you will need to figure out a way to transfer your old Windows 10 license to the new computer.

Microsoft produces three types of Windows license key for users globally. They are: Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) licenses, Retail licenses, and Volume licenses.

>> If your license is Retail or Volume, then Windows will automatically activate when you connect your new system (with the cloned drive) to the internet. You should be aware that Microsoft only allows you to transfer your license once, so if you have transferred your license ever then you will need to purchase a new license key from Microsoft.

>> Transferring an OEM license is not as straightforward as Retail and Volume licenses. OEM copies are designed to be locked to the hardware they were originally installed on by the manufacturer. Microsoft only supports transferring OEM Windows 10 to new hard drive on the same computer, thus you cannot move OEM copies of Windows to another computer. 

If you have managed to move your OEM license to another computer, then you have to call Microsoft support and ask them to activate the license. Otherwise, you will get into “move hard drive to new computer in Windows 10 not activated” issue. 

How to transfer hard drive to new computer without hardware issue

How to move Windows 10/11 to another hard drive without experiencing hardware or license issues? Thankfully, there’s powerful third-party software that can help to make the process quick and easy.

☞ Software to move an HDD to a system with different hardware

AOMEI Backupper Professional Edition is powerful backup and restore software designed specifically for Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP users.

💡Tip: How does Universal Restore work? Universal Restore, also called Dissimilar Hardware Restore, allows you to restore a backup image created on one computer to another computer even with different hardware. All your applications will be moved across, so you don’t need to manually install them on the new device.

☞ Step by step guide to move hard drive with Windows 10/11 to a new PC

Part 1. Create a bootable media

If your new computer is a machine without anything installed (a barebones machine), then you may create a bootable CD or USB with AOMEI Backupper to boot your PC.

Part 2. Create a disk image on the old PC

To move boot drive to new PC, you need to create a disk backup containing OS and all the data on the old computer, and then save the backup image to a place where the new computer can access.

Part 3. Restore image to the new PC with dissimilar hardware

Step 1. Boot the target computer up using the AOMEI bootable media you created before. It will bring you to the main window of AOMEI Backupper where you should click Restore.

Step 2. Click on Select Image File and locate the backup disk image you created earlier. Be aware that the drive letter may change when you are using the AOMEI PE system.

Step 3. In the “Image Information” page, select the option Restore the entire disk or Restore a partition in the disk and then click Next.

Step 4. Choose a disk on your new PC to restore the disk image to and click Next.

Step 5. In the “Operation Summary” page, tick the Universal Restore option to ensure the system is bootable after recovery. Click Start Restore to begin the process.

✐ Helpful Tips: ▪ Edit Partitions: you can edit the size of the partitions on the destination disk. ▪ SSD Alignment: if the storage device on the new computer is an SSD, you should enable this function to increase the read and write speeds of the SSD. ▪ In order to ensure that the restore process is successful, you may use the Check Image feature to check if the backup image is intact or damaged before restoring from it.

After the restoration process has finished, you should be able to boot the new computer with the old operating system, programs, and files installed. If you have a Windows 7 PC, you can follow the guide backup Windows 7 and restore on another computer to transfer your system.

🎬 Video Guide

User concerns about moving hard drive to new computer

1. Can I move a hard drive from one computer to another directly?

That depends. If your new computer has the same hardware as the old one, you can simply add the old hard drive to the new PC without boot errors. If not, you can move OS and files to the new computer with the “Universal Restore” method mentioned above.

2. Do I need to install new drivers?

Yes, moving to a new computer often means you'll need to install new drivers for the new hardware (motherboard, graphics card, etc.). The old drivers may not be compatible with the new system.

3. Can I use my old hard drive and the new hard drive together?

Yes, you can use both drives together. The new hard drive can be used for the operating system and applications, while the old one can store data files.

Conclusion

That’s it! See how simple it is to move your hard drive to a new computer in Windows 10/11 using AOMEI Backupper. You can save yourself a ton of time compared to reinstalling Windows, all of your applications, and messing around with the license issues. AOMEI Backupper can also help you clone old hard drive to an SSD.

If you’re in the business world and want to protect an unlimited number of computers you can use AOMEI Backupper Technician Edition. With the inbuilt AOMEI Image Deploy tool, you will be able to deploy/restore system image files on the server-side computer to multiple client-side computers over the network. Also, it allows you to backup, restore or clone on different computers without installing first by creating portable version of this software.