How to Transfer Windows 10 from HDD to SSD Without Losing Data

Reason for transferring Windows 10 to SSD

“Hi guys, I’m willing to migrate Windows 10 from HDD to SSD recently, but I have no idea of steps. Can anyone tell me how to transfer Windows 10 from HDD to SSD without losing data? Thanks in advance.” This is a kind of questions commonly seen among a lot of forums.

Well, as the reading and writing speed of SSD is much faster than that of traditional HDD, it improves the overall performance of the system, which takes less time to boot from the SSD. Besides, more and more people can afford to buy an SSD, so migrate Windows 10 from HDD to SSD becomes universal.

Can I transfer Windows 10 with built-in tool?

Although a built-in tool in Windows 10 can help you create a system image, there are some limitations.

If your SSD capacity is smaller than the current HDD, you need to shrink volume in Disk Management first in order to fit a SSD. Then you can create a system image. After finishing a kind of settings through that wizard, you’ll be asked whether to create a system repair disc or not. One important thing is that the process could fail at last if the shrunken partition still not small enough. In this case, you have to go back to the first step again! So, another much easier way is recommended.

Clone Windows 10 from HDD to SSD safely and easily

AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional is an excellent disk management tool (Support Windows 11/10/8/7 users) that allows you to transfer Windows 10 from HDD to SSD without reinstalling. Its Clone Disk function allows you to safely clone all data on the target disk to another disk, and can automatically 4K align the SSD during the cloning process to improve the performance of the SSD.

In addition, if you only want to transfer the Windows 10 system, the Migrate OS to SSD function only supports moving system-related data to the SSD, and other data remains on the original disk.

Please download the Demo version to see how to transfer Windows 10 from HDD to SSD without losing data.

✎ What to do before transferring Windows 10:

Connect the SSD to your Windows 10 computer. Typically, desktops have extra SSD disk bays, but to migrate Windows 10 to SSD on laptops, you may need a USB-SATA cable.

If migrating Windows 10 to GPT, make sure your motherboard supports EFI/UEFI boot mode. Otherwise, the cloned SSD may not boot. You can also convert GPT SSD to MBR.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant, click "Clone" in the main interface and select "Clone Disk".

Step 2. Choose the hard disk that you need to clone as the source disk and click "Next".

Step 3. Select the destination disk to store the data on the source disk, and then click "Next".

Step 4. Then, you can check the source and destination disk in the next window or change to “Sector to Sector clone”, and click the "Confirm" button to continue if there is no problem.

Here, you can also click the "Settings" button to adjust the partition size on the destination disk or tick "4k alignment" to improve the reading and writing speed of SSD if the target disk is an SSD drive.

Step 5. At last, click "Apply" and "Proceed" in the main interface to start cloning the hard drive.

✎ How to boot Windows 10 from cloned SSD?

At this point, you have successfully transferred Windows 10 from HDD to SSD. After the migration is complete, if you are using a laptop, you will need to replace the old HDD with the cloned SSD. Be careful during the replacement process, you may need a screwdriver to help you.

If you want to keep the old HDD and boot from SSD in your desktop, you can change the boot sequence to SSD in BIOS. To enter the BIOS, you can restart the PC and repeatedly press the keys prompted at the bottom of the screen to enter the BIOS. Then go to the Boot option and adjust the boot order of the SSD to the first one. After booting, you can  wipe the HDD to use it as a data disk.

This is the whole process of how to transfer Windows 10 from HDD to SSD. If you want to clone Windows Server, please upgrade to AOMEI Partition Assistant Server.