[Step Guide]How to Install Old SSD in New PC

When you’re happy with the new computer that can bring new hardware and new performance to you, another problem appears: what to do with your old computer? And if your old PC has an SSD as the system disk, then can you use the old SSD on the new computer?

Since SSD has better performance than HDD, and the price of an SSD with the same capacity as an HDD costs more, if you just set it aside, it will be a little waste. So, here, we’ll show you how to install an old SSD in a new PC. You can refer to the steps according to your condition installing old SSD in a new computer.

How to install old SSD in new pc?

There are two cases in this problem, whether the old SSD is a system disk or a data disk.

If the old SSD is a data disk without Windows OS, you can directly check whether SSD is suitable for your new PC or not. Once you install old SSD to your new computer after a while, your computer will detect that disk and you’ll see it in File Explorer. You can directly access the data on it.

However, if the old SSD is a system disk, you’ll need to do more work.

Way 1. Use old system SSD as data disk on new PC

If you want to use the old SSD that has Windows installed as a data disk for your new PC, then first you need to wipe the Windows.

Option 1. Wipe the entire disk and reformat it

If you want to get a totally clean data disk for new data in the future, then you need to completely wipe the whole SSD and reformat it.

You know SSD has totally different structure compared with HDD, you cannot just wipe it as your clean an HDD, it will damage your SSD. So, here we suggest you choose a secure SSD eraser—AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional.

This tool is a disk and partition manager for Windows computers with many helpful features. To erase your SSD without hurting its lifespan, you can choose the “SSD Secure Erase” function to safely clean data on the SSD. And after the erasing, there’s the “Format Partition” feature to help you reformat it.

Step 1. In the left menu of AOMEI Partition Assistant, click “Wipe” on in the top toolbar, and choose “SSD Secure Erase”.

Step 2. Select the SSD that you want to securely erase and click "Next".

Step 3. Double-check the SSD identification information in case of erasing the wrong SSD because the data is unrecoverable after the Erase. Now, you will see the SSD is in a frozen state. To continue, you need to perform a hot swap.

Step 4. click "Next" to start the SSD Secure Erase.

The Secure Erase operation is completed almost rapidly, and the SSD is shown as a block of unallocated space. Then you can turn to “Format Partition” to format that unallocated space.

Option 2. Wipe only the Windows partition

If you want to keep all old data on your old SSD and use it on a new PC, then you only need to wipe the partition on which Windows is currently installed. But first, you need to link your Microsoft account to the Windows 10 digital license on your device now. Then, insert the old SSD into the new motherboard, install a fresh Windows, and reactivate it using your Microsoft account.

Here, we’ll show you how to delete the Windows partition. Please prepare a bootable USB to help you install Windows. Because after wiping, your computer won’t have Windows to boot into.

Since Windows computer won’t allow users to wipe the system, so you’ll have to choose a third-party tool. AOMEI Partition Assistant can also help you. Here are the steps for wiping the partition.

Step 1. Run this software and right-click the target partition and choose “Delete Partition”.

Step 2. In the small pop-up window, choose Delete partition quickly (delete partition without wiping data). Then, click on OK.

Step 3. Go back to the main console, and click Apply to commit operation.

After you delete the Windows partition, you can’t boot from this disk. Now you can plug the old SSD into your new PC and you’ll need to install Windows from bootable media to your new PC.

Way 2. Use old Windows OS on new PC

In Way 1, we’ll show you how to use old SSD as a data disk on new PC. Since you don’t need the old system, you can just wipe the system to avoid booting conflict. However, some users may wish to use the familiar Windows OS and use their own programs without reinstalling and resetting all on the new SSD, and then wiping the old system SSD for other usages.

To realize this idea, you need to remove the new SSD and plug it into your old computer and clone the old SSD to the new one, then erase the SSD as we show you before to protect your privacy.

Now, we’ll show how to clone your system SSD to your new SSD with AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional.

Step 1. In the main interface of AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, click “Clone Disk” in the right menu.

Step 2. Select a copying method you need from "Clone Disk Quickly" and "Sector-by-Sector Clone". Here we select “Clone Disk Quickly” as an example.

★ Tips:

 “Clone Disk Quickly” only copies the used sectors to the destination location, allowing the target disk smaller than the total size of the source disk.

“Sector-by-Sector Clone” will copy all sectors of to the target disk, so the destination disk must be equal to or larger than the source disk.

Step 3. Select the Windows system disk as the source disk and hit on “Next”.

Step 4. Then select the SSD drive as the destination disk and click “Next”.

Step 5. Now, you can also resize partitions just being created on the SSD drive.

Step 6. Read the subsequent boot note, click “Finish” and then click “Apply” to execute the pending operation.

Now you can wipe your old SSD, and then, move both SSDs to your new computer. Don’t forget to enter BIOS to set boot settings.

Ending lines

Hope you understand how to install an old SSD on a new PC. As we demonstrate, AOMEI Partition Assistant is a useful tool. It contains a variety of useful features that allow users to manage their machines more easily. This utility can also convert a disk to MBR/GPT without removing partitions, relocate installed programs to another drive/disk, allocate free space, and so forth. What’s more, you can choose the Server Edition if you’re using Windows Server 2025/2022/2019/2016/2012(R2)/2008(R2)/2003.