Question How Do i transfer only an Os from a partition?.

[George_M__1]

So i bought an nvme drive 500gb so i couldn't have extra space and to move my os (windows 11) from my hard drive (1Tb) but i could because all my files games and such are in the Os partition(what i mean is os partition takes alnost all the 1Tb because all my games and files are in there with windows) so i was hopping someone can tell me how to move only windows and leave my games and files on the hard drive please help thank you.

 

[rgd1101]

where the game from?
depend on where. might be easier to move the games

 

[George_M__1]

where the game from?
depend on where. might be easier to move the games

Elaborate

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Steam/Origin allow you to move games from one drive to the other. If all you have is the OS and games, then it might be easier just to move the games folders to the new drive, leaving only your OS and whatnot on the original drive.

 

[George_M__1]

Steam/Origin allow you to move games from one drive to the other. If all you have is the OS and games, then it might be easier just to move the games folders to the new drive, leaving only your OS and whatnot on the original drive.

Good suggestion but i dont think it will work. On the hard drive i have 1TB and about 700 to 750 gb are in the Os partition because apart from windows it also has my games,files and such and the mew nvme is only 500gb i think im screwed.

 

[rgd1101]

could download the game again for steam/origin

 

[George_M__1]

could download the game again for steam/origin

Now that you mention it i could just reinstal my heavy games later like gta mw2 warzone and such but i dont know if it will be enough for the transfer

 

[hotaru.hino]

To throw another spanner in the works, you're going to have to completely format the hard drive anyway if you want to use it without weird issues.

Windows doesn't really like it when you try to simply delete another copy of Windows.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Good suggestion but i dont think it will work. On the hard drive i have 1TB and about 700 to 750 gb are in the Os partition because apart from windows it also has my games,files and such and the mew nvme is only 500gb i think im screwed.

Hmm. You only move one game at a time. Thats how it works on Steam and Origin. As you transfer it from the OS drive to the new drive, it frees up the space from that moved game on the OS drive.

Simple: Begin moving games to the new drive. As you do that, you will be freeing up space on the OS drive, with little or no effort involved. Once the new drive is approx 80% full, then stop moving the games. Whatever space is now on the OS drive will be freed up. You shouldn't have to touch the partitions.

The other option is to disconnect your current drive. Install the new drive and use Windows install to do a new drive (your new 500gb drive) as the OS drive. Then download and installed all your games to the original drive after wiping it. You can obviously keep the windows.old folder and have full access to documents etc. Save what you need then wipe the drive, and have the 1tb as games only.

However, with all of that said. Which exact drives are we talking about. You want the OS on the fastest drive.

 

[SkyNetRising]

So i bought an nvme drive 500gb so i couldn't have extra space and to move my os (windows 11) from my hard drive (1Tb) but i could because all my files games and such are in the Os partition(what i mean is os partition takes alnost all the 1Tb because all my games and files are in there with windows) so i was hopping someone can tell me how to move only windows and leave my games and files on the hard drive please help thank you.

Should have bought 1TB NVME drive instead. Then migration would be much simpler.

At this point you can migrate following way:

get another 1TB drive for temporary storage (HDD, SSD, internal, external - doesn't matter),​

move over your large user data like videos, music, games - to this new temp drive,​

remaining used space on 1TB OS drive should be less than 400GB,​

Now you can clone OS from old OS HDD to new NVME SSD.

After cloning is done, first boot from NVME has to be done with old OS drive physically disconnected.
This step is important. Failing to do so, you'll have to redo cloning.

 

[George_M__1]

To throw another spanner in the works, you're going to have to completely format the hard drive anyway if you want to use it without weird issues.

Windows doesn't really like it when you try to simply delete another copy of Windows.

So will i have problems if i clone/transfer the Os partition then format the hard drive??

 

[George_M__1]

Hmm. You only move one game at a time. Thats how it works on Steam and Origin. As you transfer it from the OS drive to the new drive, it frees up the space from that moved game on the OS drive.

Simple: Begin moving games to the new drive. As you do that, you will be freeing up space on the OS drive, with little or no effort involved. Once the new drive is approx 80% full, then stop moving the games. Whatever space is now on the OS drive will be freed up. You shouldn't have to touch the partitions.

The other option is to disconnect your current drive. Install the new drive and use Windows install to do a new drive (your new 500gb drive) as the OS drive. Then download and installed all your games to the original drive after wiping it. You can obviously keep the windows.old folder and have full access to documents etc. Save what you need then wipe the drive, and have the 1tb as games only.

However, with all of that said. Which exact drives are we talking about. You want the OS on the fastest drive.

Yes i want to have windows on the nvme.hmm i think the only simple solution isto clear as much space as i can from the hard drive so the Os partition can fit on the nvme and then format the hard drive and reinstall the games there

 

[George_M__1]

Should have bought 1TB NVME drive instead. Then migration would be much simpler.

At this point you can migrate following way:

get another 1TB drive for temporary storage (HDD, SSD, internal, external - doesn't matter),​

move over your large user data like videos, music, games - to this new temp drive,​

remaining used space on 1TB OS drive should be less than 400GB,​

Now you can clone OS from old OS HDD to new NVME SSD.

After cloning is done, first boot from NVME has to be done with old OS drive physically disconnected.
This step is important. Failing to do so, you'll have to redo cloning.

So after i clone the partition i have to disconect my hard drive for it to boot from the nvme?

 

[SkyNetRising]

So after i clone the partition i have to disconect my hard drive for it to boot from the nvme?

Yes.

Note - it's not enough to clone just OS partition.
Bootloader partition has to be cloned too.

Can you show screenshot from Disk Management?
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

 

[hotaru.hino]

So will i have problems if i clone/transfer the Os partition then format the hard drive??

No, but if you wanted to use the hard drive purely as a data drive, you can't delete Windows from it like you normally would with any other file or folder. In addition there's so-called "super hidden" files that Windows really doesn't want you to touch.

So it's just easier to format the drive to make it usable as a data drive. Or more specifically, going into Disk Management and deleting all the partitions, then creating a new one. Or using the command line, launching diskpart, and cleaning the disk.

 

[USAFRet]

Splitting out " only an Os" will result in tears.
Many, many tears.

About 3 minutes after the original OS install, it is no longer, "just the OS".
Software for your GPU and other hardware, all your other applications....all these will die.

You could clone the whole thing off to a new, larger, drive.
Or, move your games to a different drive. Steam makes this trivially easy.