How to safely move everything from one hard drive to another?

[stevencsme]

I've taken a look around this site and I feel like I definitely have the least amount of knowledge about this stuff than anyone else here.

First off, I don't want to clone my hard drive because I actually would like to keep my os on my ssd. (I have two hard drives in my computer. Everything is on my ssd.)

I just want to move all my games and files from my ssd to my other hard drive and still have everything working normally, i. e. stuff like trying to open something from my desktop.

Can I just copy everything under the "Local Disk (C" and paste it under "New Volume (D", and then delete everything from local disk c?

 

[ksham]

No; you do exactly as you said in your second sentence. You clone it, which doesn't mean to copy it. There are numerous cloning apps that will accomplish this goal.

 

[stevencsme]

No; you do exactly as you said in your second sentence. You clone it, which doesn't mean to copy it. There are numerous cloning apps that will accomplish this goal.

But wouldnt that make my second hard drive (which is just a regular 1tb hard drive) my new main hard drive?
It would have to operating system on their too and everything right? I want to keep my os on my ssd because thats the only reason I bought it for.

Or do I not understand what cloning is?

 

[ksham]

Oh, you mean like copy a folder (like a Music folder) into your HDD and still be able to access it while in the SSD? The answer is yes. It is tedious though. You will have to right click and edit the properties of the folder to point to the path of the new folder in your HDD. Some applications may not work if you move the Programs folder. Music, movies, and any files that you create can be moved to your HDD.

However, you cannot move the entire C: drive if your OS is installed into the C: drive. Otherwise, you will delete it.