What to Do When Change to a New Computer?

Changing a new computer is always a joyful thing but how to transfer data to new computer is annoying for many users. And some people may want to transfer Windows to a new computer to work with a familiar Windows environment, so how to keep old data on the new PC is a tricky problem for us PC users.

What’s more, after changing to a new computer, what to do with an old PC is another thorny issue. Most old computers are still functional, so it might be a little waste to abandon them in a rush. If you can recycle it, your old computer can continue to work for your life.

2 must-do steps after changing to a new computer

First, we’ll show you how to transfer Windows, data, and if you need, a hard disk to your new computer, and completely erase all data on your old PC. If you want to sell your old computer or old disks, this is the most important thing you need to do. You don’t want other users to recover your privacy, right?

1. Transfer Windows/files/programs to an old computer

Now, let’s see how to transfer data and all you need to your new computer.

For users who wish to use the old Windows system on a new computer, the only choice is to clone or migrate your Windows system with third-party clone software. This kind of tool can clone only the system and system-needed partitions and files to ensure your OS can run smoothly on another computer.

If you don’t know much about these tools, here we recommend you to AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. It is a disk and partition manager for Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7/XP users to adjust their devices. The “Migrate OS to SSD” function allows users to migrate the system to another SSD or HDD without reinstalling the system. And if you need it, there is a “Disk Clone Wizard” function for users who may want to transfer OS, all programs, and all files to a new computer.

In this part, we’ll show how to use the “Migrate OS to SSD” feature to transfer Windows to a new computer.

Step 1. Connect the hard drive in your new computer to your old computer. If the old OS is on a laptop, you need to prepare a SATA-USB adapter.

Step 2. Install and run Partition Assistant Standard. Click “Migrate OS” in the "Clone" menu.

Step 3. Select the new hard drive as the target disk. If there is a partition on SSD, check “I want to delete all partitions on disk 2 to migrate system to the disk” and make “Next” available.

Step 4. Drag to resize the system partition or just type the desired number in the box below.

Don’t forget to read the Note in this window.

Step 5. Click “Apply” and “Proceed” to execute the pending operations.

After the migration, you can remove the new disk and plug it into your new computer, then try to boot to check if the move is successful.

If you’re a deep user of Microsoft OneDrive, you can download the files that you uploaded before. But this cloud storage is only for files and photos.

2. Completely clear data from old computer

After you successfully transfer your personal data, now you can wipe your data from your old computer. This is very important for users who want to sell or give an old computer to another user. Deleting and formatting are two unsafe methods to avoid data recovery by others. If you want to completely clean your data and prevent it to be recovered, you need to wipe or erase your disks.

AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional also has helpful functions to help you. For HDD users, we have a “Wipe Hard Drive” feature, and for SSD users, you can choose the “SSD Secure Erase” function. Both ways will overwrite useless data after cleaning the data to prevent your privacy to be leaked by any data recovery tool.

Here, we’ll show how to wipe the system HDD. You can check: Wipe an SSD with Windows 10 to learn how to erase an SSD.

Step 1. In the main interface of AOMEI Partition Assistant, right-click the hard drive that needs to be wiped, and select "Wipe Hard Drive" in the pop-up menu.

Step 2. It will pop up a window for you to choose the wiping method. Here we choose "Fill sectors with Zero", which is safe and quick. This operation will delete all partitions and erase all data on the selected hard drive. Click "OK" to continue.

Step 3. It will pop up a note to ask you if you are sure to delete all partitions including the system partition. If the system partition is deleted, your computer won't start the next time. If there is no problem, click "Yes" to move on.

Step 4. Click "Apply" to start wiping.

Further reading: How to recycle your old PC?

After you cleaned the old computer and transfer the necessary staff to the new computer. What can you do with your old computer?

Except for abandoning it, you can reuse it to avoid waste.

Option 1. Set up 2 disks combo to reuse the old disk

If the hard disk of your old computer is still in a nice status, after you wipe it, you can reformat it and reuse the old disk on your new computer as a storage disk. Especially for SSD users, using an HDD as a data disk is a good cost-performance option to extend the storage on your new PC. You can move some large programs and large video games to that storage disk to release more space on your system disk.

Option 2. Create your media center with an old PC

You can download a theatre program and create a home media center for your family. Most of those tools support Linux, Windows, macOS, jailbroken iOS devices, and rooted Android devices. After being set properly, you can enjoy videos, music, and other entertainment on your PC or smartphone with quick access.

Option 3. Use the old computer as a home security system

For laptop users, if you have an old laptop with a built-in camera, you can download computer-based surveillance software, and then run the app, and put your laptop in a nice location to protect your home.

Ending lines

When changing to a new computer, how to transfer Windows to new computer and transfer data to new computer might be a problem for many users. But with the help of AOMEI Partition Assistant, you can easily and safely set up both new computer and old computers.

In addition, this multifunctional tool can also convert a disk to MBR/GPT without deleting partitions, convert file systems to NTFS/FAT32 without formatting drive, create Windows To Go drive to run Windows on any PC, etc. And there is the Server Edition for Windows Server 2025/2022/2019/2016/2012(R2)/2008(R2)/2003.