“Can I transfer my SSD to another computer?”, if you wish to move old SSD when you have another PC, this post will show you how to set your old SSD on another computer.
“I purchased a whole new PC, but I want transfer my old SSD/HDD from my current PC to this new build. I know that there is a problem with Windows not being able to reconfigure to new hardware, and that I would need to reinstall Windows or obtain a license key. I don't mind reinstalling Windows, but I'm concerned about how I should move my drives.
Is there a good guide for doing this properly and without damaging any data? Do I need to backup my data to another drive and format the old one before reinstalling Windows? I have one SSD and two HDDs; the OS and certain apps are loaded on the SSD, while the two HDDs are largely used for storage with a few applications installed. ”
——From Reddit
In the scenario, the user wants to transfer old SSD to another computer, If you also have a similar problem, then this post will help you a lot.
To answer this question, first, you need to know there are some various situations.
If the target SSD is a data disk without a system on it, of course, you can plug it into any suitable computer. Just pay attention to the driver issue, if your computer does not recognize the SSD, you can go to the Service window to have a check to reinstall the driver or update the driver software.
Another situation is more complex. If the target SSD is a Windows system disk, you’ll have more points to pay attention to.
▶ Check whether the hardware is compatible or not
Usually, the system binds with the computer hardware like the motherboard. If you want to directly plug a Windows system SSD into another computer, you need to check the hardware compatibility first. If the disk can’t fit the motherboard, chipset, and other hardware, you may confront computer boot failure and errors like hardware abstraction layer, “hal.dll”, or even a BSOD.
▶ Will transferring Windows system to new SSD affect license
The second problem is the Windows license problem. OEM license keys are normally non-transferable since they are associated with the initial computer that has the operating system installed. The target PC will not operate if you just put in an SSD with OEM license OS, clone OEM system disk, and migrate OEM OS.
Only retail and volume licenses are transferable. It can be reactivated because it's available for any computer, however only one at a time. If you connect to the Internet, Windows will activate your computer immediately. If not, you can manually reactivate your machine by inputting your license key.
You can check the license on your computer via CMD. Press Win + R key combinations or open Command Prompt directly, then input slmgr.vbs –dli, click “OK”.
If you’re using a retail license Windows system, then you can follow the following content to try to transfer SSD to another computer. As we’ve mentioned before, the system SSD needs to be recognized by computer hardware, otherwise, it won’t boot. To avoid this problem, we suggest you clone the Windows to the disk on another computer, if you don’t want to reinstall the system and other apps.
AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional is a helpful tool in this case. This tool is a disk and partition manager for Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7 users. Cloning a hard drive to another is made simple and straightforward by its graphical user interface (GUI). It can handle a variety of scenarios, like cloning a larger solid-state drive (SSD) to a smaller disk, cloning an SSD with faulty sectors, cloning a SATA drive to an NVME drive, and so on. Not only is it a disk optimizer, but it is also a simple disk cloner.
To improve the performance of the new disk, it gives you the ability to resize partitions and align SSD partitions on the new disk.
To transfer SSD to another computer, it has two practical features:
✔ Migrate OS to SSD: This function can only migrate the system, relevant files, and related partitions to the target disk. You can use a familiar Windows environment on another PC.
✔ Disk Clone Wizard: This one may clone the entire disk; any applications installed on the source drive will boot directly without reinstallation following the clone. Furthermore, this function may clone just utilized space, allowing you to clone a bigger disk to a smaller drive.
Before proceeding with the transfer procedure of an SSD to another computer, it is necessary to make the following preparations:
A power connection that is both consistent and reliable is required.
Remove the disk from the new PC, connect it to your old PC, and verify that it can be detected. If there is only one disk slot available, you can connect the target disk to your device using a SATA-to-USB cable. If the new disk contains any essential files, it is important to back them up beforehand, as all data will be overwritten during the disk clone process.
Ensure that the destination disk has an adequate amount of storage space to accommodate all the data from your old SSD.
Download and install AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional on your old computer.
Step 1. Install and open AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro. Click “Clone” on in the top toolbar, and choose “Migrate OS”. An introduction about this wizard will come into your sight, read it and click “Next”.
Step 2. Select the unallocated space on SSD as the destination location and then click “Next”.
Step 3. You can resize the system partition on this page. Then a note on how to boot Windows 10 on SSD will pop up. Keep it in mind and click “Next”.
Step 4. Confirm all operations and now the D: drive is the cloned Windows 10. Then click on “Apply” > “Proceed” to execute the Windows 10 OS migration to SSD.
Step 1. Click "Clone" in the main interface, and select "Clone Disk".
Step 2. Choose the Windows 10 system drive as the source disk and click "Next".
Step 3. Select the NVMe SSD drive as the destination 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 the SSD.
Step 5. Click “Finish” and then click “Apply” to execute the pending operation.
Now you can plug the SSD back into the target computer. You may need to enter BIOS to change the boot mode from Legacy to UEFI or UEFI to Legacy and change the boot order.
“Can I transfer my SSD to another computer?”, well, it depends on what kind of Windows license you’re using. If you’re using a retail license, then cloning SSD is a nice choice to help you transfer Windows to another computer. And it has many other features like MBR/GPT data-safe conversion, app/folder mover, PC cleaner, etc.
For Windows Server 2025/2022/2019/2016/2012(R2) users, you can choose the Server Edition of this tool to conveniently manage your devices.