Moving to a Windows 10 PC

Making the move to a new Windows 10 PC? We’re happy you’re here and we’ve got you covered.

This guide will help you discover the best Microsoft has to offer and help you transfer your favorite files and apps to your new device so you can get up and running quickly, and get back to doing what you love.

If you’re on a Windows 7 device, note that support has ended and we recommend you move to a Windows 10 PC to stay secure. Learn more about the Windows 7 end of support and how to get Windows 10.

Step 1: Learn the benefits of a modern Windows 10 PC

Shopping for a new PC? Watch videos about common device-related terms you might come across in your research, including storage types, graphics processing units, and more.

Regular updates are built in to Windows 10, meaning you’ll always have the latest features. Explore what‘s new in the latest Windows 10 updates.

Get customized info about your current Windows 7 PC health and performance with the Guide to Windows 10 app (for Windows 7 devices).

Step 2: Purchase your new PC

For quicker startup times, longer battery life, and more responsive apps, a new PC has you covered. Find a new PC that fits your needs.

Step 3: Sign in with Microsoft to streamline your experience

Never forget a password again. Get personal access to all things Microsoft with a single, secure sign-on, plus get free OneDrive storage to help you move your files to your new PC. Good news—if you have an Xbox or Office account, you may already have a Microsoft account. You can also sign in with any email to get started.

Step 4: Bring your files and favorites with you

There’s no need to leave your files or browser favorites behind. Bring them with you to your new PC using one of the following options. We recommend using OneDrive so your files are backed up and protected in the cloud.

Select your current version of Windows to find instructions on how to move your files.

Simple Way to Move a Windows 10 Hard Drive to a New Computer

In this article, you’ll learn how to move your old hard drive to a new computer without losing secure boot or your Windows 10 activation. The greatest thing is that you won’t need to reinstall Windows 10 on your PC.

By AOMEI / Last Updated March 12, 2021

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Case: Need to move hard drive to new computer in Windows 10

Need Help!

I bought a new computer a couple of days ago. Every time I try to move my hard drive to my new computer, I always get boot errors, or Windows 10 needs to be activated again! How do I move my Windows installation to my new PC without having to format the old drive or reinstall Windows? Any advice would be appreciated.

Are you in the same situation as this user? Don’t worry! This post will help you transfer old hard drive to a new computer without reinstalling Windows 10.

Unlike cloning Windows 10 hard drive on the same computer, when you move your Windows 10 operating system to a new computer you’ll need to consider a variety of important factors, like the Windows activation license and the hardware of your old computer - all the relevant questions will be answered in the following article.

Can I move my Windows installation drive to new computer?

When buying a new computer, many users would prefer adding old hard drive to the new computer to doing a fresh install so that they can have all their data and old OS on the new device. Whilst a fresh install is not very complicated, it can take a long time to reinstall all of your old applications and drivers after OS reinstallation.В

The main advantage of moving your old HDD to your new PC is that you don’t need to reinstall any applications, drivers, or copy your data as everything is migrated across at the same time.

It might sound easy to move Windows 10 from your old hard drive to your new PC but don’t be fooled, it isn’t! You will come across both software and hardware issues unless you use specialist Windows 10 migration tool. Following are two important issues you should take care when performing hard drive transfer to a new computer:

в–¶В Different hardware types

When moving your Windows installation, you have to consider potential hardware compatibility issues – one of the main issues you need to consider is the system driver. If your new system has identical hardware to the old one, then the process is extremely simple. You can simply add the old hard drive to the new system and it will boot without any issues.

However, if the two computers don’t have identical hardware (which is usually the case) then you will encounter  “move hard drive to new computer in Windows 10 won’t boot” error due to driver incompatibility, and your Windows 10 OS will need to be activated again.

в–¶В Different license types (Microsoft Windows)

Windows activation is another problem you will need to contend with, even when you have solved the hardware issues we mentioned above. If you don’t want to purchase a new Windows 10 license from Microsoft, then you will need to figure out a way to transfer your old Windows 10 license to the new computer.

Microsoft produces three types of Windows license key for users globally. They are: Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) licenses, Retail licenses, and Volume licenses.

>> If your license is Retail or Volume, then Windows will automatically activate when you connect your new system (with the cloned drive) to the internet. You should be aware that Microsoft only allows you to transfer your license once, so if you have transferred your license ever then you will need to purchase a new license key from Microsoft.

>> Transferring an OEM license is not as straightforward as Retail and Volume licenses. OEM copies are designed to be locked to the hardware they were originally installed on by the manufacturer. Microsoft only support transferring OEM Windows 10 to new hard drive on the same computer, thus you cannot move OEM copies of Windows to another computer.В

If you have managed to move your OEM license to another computer, then you have to call Microsoft support and ask them to activate the license. Otherwise, you will get into “move hard drive to new computer in Windows 10 not activated” issue.В

Move hard drive to new computer in Windows 10 without hardware issue

Video Tutorial

How to move Windows 10 to another hard drive without experiencing hardware or license issues? Thankfully, there’s powerful third-party software that can help to make the process quick and easy.

☞ Software to move an HDD to a system with different hardware

AOMEI Backupper Professional EditionВ is powerful backup and restore software designed specifically for Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP users. It allows you to createВ system backups, disk backups, and partition backups with just a few clicks. You can then use the backup images to restore your system and data whenever you experience any problems.

The Universal Restore feature (also called Dissimilar Hardware Restore) lets you restore a backup image created on one computer to a different computer, even if the new computer has different hardware to your old system. It will also help you to transfer Windows 10 license to new computer. What is more pleasant is that all your applications will be moved across, so you don’t need to manually install them.

Wanna have a try? Please click the button below to download the free trial of AOMEI Backupper Professional Edition:

☞ Step by step guide to move hard drive with Windows 10 to a new PC

Part 1. Create a disk backup image of the old PC

To transfer hard drive to new computer without reinstalling Windows, you need to create aВ disk backupВ containing OS and all the data on the old computer, and then save the backup image to a place where the new computer can access. AOMEI Backupper supports backing up Windows 10 to USB drives, HDDs, SSDs, and network location, etc.В

If your new computer is a machine without anything installed (a barebones machine) then you mayВ create a bootable CD or USBВ with AOMEI Backupper to boot your PC.В

Part 2. Restore image to the computer with dissimilar hardware

Step 1.В Boot the target computer up using the AOMEI bootable media you created before. It will bring you to the main window of AOMEI Backupper where you should click Restore.

Step 2.В Click on Select Image File and locate the backup disk image you created earlier. Be aware that the drive letter may change when you are using the AOMEI PE system.

Step 3. In the “Image Information” page, select the option Restore the entire disk or Restore a partition in the disk and then click Next.

Step 4.В Choose a disk on your new PC to restore the disk image to and clickВ Next.

Step 5. In the “Operation Summary” page, tick the Universal Restore option to ensure the system is bootable after recovery. Click Start Restore to begin the process.

вњђ Helpful Tips:
в–Є Edit Partitions:В you can edit the size of the partitions on the destination disk.
в–Є SSD Alignment: if the storage device on the new computer is an SSD, you should enable this function to increase the read and write speeds of the SSD.
в–Є In order to ensure that the restore process is successful, you may use the Check Image feature to check if the backup image is intact or damaged before restoring from it.

After the restoration process has finished you should be able to boot the new computer with the old operating system, programs, and files installed. If you have a Windows 7 PC you can follow the guide backup Windows 7 and restore on another computerВ to transfer your system.

Conclusion

That’s it! See how simple it is to move your hard drive to a new computer in Windows 10 using AOMEI Backupper. You can save yourself a ton of time compared to reinstalling Windows, all of your applications, and messing around with the license issues. AOMEI Backupper can also help you clone old hard drive to an SSD.

If you’re in the business world and want to protect an unlimited number of computers you can use AOMEI Backupper Technician Edition. With the inbuilt AOMEI Image Deploy tool, you will be able to deploy/restore system image files on the server-side computer to multiple client-side computers over the network.

How to Clone or Move Your Windows 10 Installation to a Larger Hard Disk or SSD

When it comes to technology, upgrading is a fact of life, whether it’s your operating system, applications, or hardware devices. One of the most common hardware components users want/need to upgrade is their local hard drive. Reasons include limited space, better performance, and the ability to take advantage of advanced features like UEFI or support for GPT disks. Upgrading to a new SSD drive, for example, can extend the life of a desktop or laptop PC for many years. I know I’ve done it several times.

However, the issue with upgrading is dealing with the migration of your existing OS and data to the new drive. After all, who wants to rebuild the OS, figure out how to re-activate it, track down and reinstall all the apps, and oh yeah, move all your personal files over. Yeah, not me! That’s why today, I’m going to review an alternative process using the built-in System Image and Easeus Todo Backup to restore your installation to a larger or smaller disk.

There is an alternative in system imaging and cloning. In this article, we take a look using the built-in System Image and Easeus Todo Backup to clone your drive to a larger or faster hard drive.

Migrate your Windows 10 Installation to a New Hard Disk or SSD

Windows 10 includes a built-in option called System Image, which lets you create a complete replica of your installation along with partitions. We already covered the steps on how to create the system image. To back up your installation, you will need a USB external hard disk to store the image. An external hard disk with lots of storage is cheap, and a recommended buy, whether you plan on performing an activity such as this or keeping your system backed up regularly.

There is one major problem with System Image in Windows 10 and earlier versions of Windows; it doesn’t support restoring to partition layouts smaller in size than the drive it’s replacing. For instance, if you go from a 500 GB hard disk to a 256 GB SSD, when you attempt to restore the system image created from the 500 GB disk, you will receive an error indicating the disk is too small. If this is the case for you, then system imaging is of no use; instead, you should consider cloning, detailed further in this article.

After creating your backup, shut down the computer, install your hard disk or SSD drive, start the computer then load your BIOS or UEFI firmware. Check to make sure the drive is detected. After confirming these changes, connect your external hard disk, then power on the device. Boot from your Windows 10 install media, which will be used to facilitate the restoration of your system image created earlier. When you arrive at the Install Now screen, click the Repair computer link; this will load the Recovery Environment.

Click Troubleshoot, then click the System Image Recovery menu.

Your external hard disk should be detected along with the most recent system image you created. If it’s not the right one, use the Select a system image radio box, select the right image, then click Next.

If you have more than one local disk or partition, you can exclude it from the restoration process.

After confirming your selections, click Next to begin the restoration, then wait. Restoration can take some time, depending on the size of the system image. When complete, Windows 10 will restart then boot to the Windows 10 desktop.

There is a possibility if you restored the system image to larger disks, you will need to reconfigure your partitions if you restored the image to a larger hard disk or SSD. In Windows 10, press Windows key + X and click Disk Management. You will see an unallocated space created for you. You can recover this space using the Extend volume wizard. Right-click the system partition, then click Extend, click Next, then click Finish.

Restoring to a Smaller Hard Disk or SSD

If you are going the opposite direction, restoring to a smaller hard disk or SSD, cloning will be the recommended option. The best solution I have found for cloning and restoring a Windows 10 installation is the free EaseUs Todo Backup. EaseUs Todo Backup can not only restore a backup of your Windows 10 installation, but it can also do so to a non-corresponding partition layout. You can download a free copy here.

Once you have EaseUS Todo Backup installed, launch the app. You will need to connect the target hard disk or SSD to your computer where you would like to clone your Windows 10 installation. This can be done multiple ways; you can install the storage device as a local disk; or install it in a USB external enclosure, then attach it to your computer. After settling on a method of attaching the target disk, launch EaseUs Todo Backup, click the Clone tab.

Choose your source disk containing the operating system. As you can see below, I have two sets of disk attached: my Windows 10 installation on hard disk 0 31 GB and my new LOCALNEW disk 25 GB where the clone will be copied. Click Next.

The next step is to select the target disk, in this case, our LOCALNEW disk 25 GB drive. Click the checkbox, then click Next.

The following screenshot shows the disk layout after cloning the old drive to the new. Click Proceed to begin the clone.

Click OK to confirm the changes.

This process can take some time, depending on the clone’s size and the amount of data. After the clone is complete, click Finish, shut down your computer, remove the old storage device, install and configure the new hard disk or SSD as your boot drive.

Please turn on your computer; Windows 10 should start as it previously did. Still, if you experience activation problems, you can use the Activation Troubleshooter in Windows 10 Anniversary Update or later to resolve any problems.

This is definitely an involved task, and users considering upgrading their storage device should think carefully about the migration method they plan on using. My personal lesson, if you are moving to a storage device that’s larger than the one you are replacing, the built-in System Image tool in Windows 10 is more than sufficient. If you are moving to a smaller hard disk or SSD storage, then you will need a third-party utility such as EaseUs Todo Backup to help you. It goes without saying, additional tools to facilitate the restoration might be needed, such as an external hard disk or even an external enclosure.