Clone Hard Drive to Larger Drive Without Reinstalling Windows

"Can I clone a hard drive to a larger drive?"

"The capacity of my current hard drive with Windows 10 installed is not enough and I encounter Low Disk Space warning. I'm unwilling to delete files or uninstall applications and I wanna upgrade to a larger hard drive. As I don't want to make Windows 10 & all other applications reinstallation on the larger disk, I intend to clone the smaller drive to a larger drive. Is it possible? How can I do it?"

How to clone a smaller hard drive to a larger one?

In fact, it's a rather easy task for hard drive cloning software to clone a smaller drive to a bigger one. Here AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional is recommended. Its "Disk Clone Wizard" function allows you to clone hard drive to a disk of different sizes (larger, equal, or smaller) with a secure boot. And it's "Migrate OS to SSD" function supports you to clone only system-related partitions (data partition won't be copied) to another disk. Besides, if you clone to SSD, it can make a 4K alignment for SSD to improve performance. Now, have a closer look at how it clones the hard drive to a larger drive.

Pre-cloning preparation

Before you start cloning a hard drive to a larger one, there are a few things to look out for.

▶ Storage space of the second drive: ensure that the second drive's storage space is at least the same or bigger than the source drive’s so as to accommodate all the cloned data and extra space for future files.

▶ Back up all data on the second drive: the second drive will be cleaned during the cloning process, so please ensure you have made a complete backup in advance. 

▶ Clean up the original drive: remove applications, temporary files, or redundant records on the source disk.  It is not wise to waste storage space for redundant data.

▶ A method to connect the second drive: if the second drive isn't installed on the PC, an adaptor or an external dock is required to attach the second drive to the computer before cloning. 

▶ A constant power supply: when cloning a drive on a laptop, ensure a reliable power source since cloning can take a while, especially if you have a lot of data. And any sudden power failure will disturb the cloning process and cause data loss.

▶ Check the computer boot mode: if you clone MBR system disk to GPT or versa vice, you need to enter BIOS to change boot mode (Legacy BIOS and UEFI), so that you can boot from the cloned hard drive successfully. Therefore, please ensure your motherboard supports the corresponding boot mode.

Steps of how to clone smaller disk to a large one

Step 1. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. Then, go to "Clone" > "Clone Disk".

Step 2. Then It will pop up a window where you can choose a way to clone to a larger drive. The first way is recommended. However, if you clone hard drive with bad sector, please select the second way.

Step 3. In the window like the following screenshot, you need to select the smaller hard drive as your source disk.

Step 4. Choose the larger drive as your destination disk. If the destination disk is SSD, tick the box before Optimize the performance of SSD to align SSD partitions.

Step 5. Here you can adjust partition size on the destination drive.

PS.: If you clone hard drive to smaller SSD, the option "Clone without resizing partitions will be greyed out".

You’ll be prompted by a note about how to boot from the cloned disk after cloning, read it and keep it in mind.

Step 6. You’ll return to the main interface. Click "Apply" and "Proceed" to commit operation.

✐ Note: AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional Edition is for Windows 10/8.1/8/7, XP, and Vista; When you need to clone disk to larger disk in Windows Server 2019/2016/2012 (R2)/2008 (R2)/2003, you can employ AOMEI Partition Assistant Server Edition.

Wrap things up

Whether you want to clone hard drive to a larger drive or smaller drive, AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional can be very helpful. And it comes with various other functions as well, like converting disk between MBR and GPT without deleting partitions or data loss, splitting a large partition into two smaller ones, quickly partitioning a hard drive within 2 clicks, recovering lost partition, etc.