Question I want to transfer my Windows 10 to my SSD from my HDD Hardrive and not lose my Files

[animefan8910]

So it's 2022 I should not have to ask this question, but how do i Transfer my windows 10 to my SDD without losing my files? I herd you can clone windows 10 from your hardrive to your SSD and set the SSD as your primary boot for windows 10. I DO NOT WANT any other files on my SSD other then Windows thats it. Why can't they have it you install the damn thing and set it as primary boot and then it works with the Windows 10 on your hardrive.

 

[USAFRet]

You can't clone "only Windows".
There is no tool or function to do that.

Everything on the C drive or partition, yes.

What size is the current drive?
How much space is consumed?
What size/make/model is the new SD?

 

[kanewolf]

So it's 2022 I should not have to ask this question, but how do i Transfer my windows 10 to my SDD without losing my files? I herd you can clone windows 10 from your hardrive to your SSD and set the SSD as your primary boot for windows 10. I DO NOT WANT any other files on my SSD other then Windows thats it. Why can't they have it you install the damn thing and set it as primary boot and then it works with the Windows 10 on your hardrive.

You can clone. That is the ONLY way you don't lose access to your installed applications. Why? Because of the Windows registry that is part of the Windows install. If you do a fresh install onto your SSD then you don't have the registry values required to make your applications work.

 

[animefan8910]

You can't clone "only Windows".
There is no tool or function to do that.

Everything on the C drive or partition, yes.

What size is the current drive?
How much space is consumed?
What size/make/model is the new SD?

Sorry I should have told you that information. My SSD is a Samsung Evo 970 pro NVME SSD 1TB (just got it today) and my hardrive is a seagate something and it's also 1TB. Sorry if it sounds like i'm on edge i'm in a 82 degree house right now because my AC is broken. Here is an idea could I just upgrade to a free version of Windows 11 and choose my SSD as the download storage?

 

[USAFRet]

Sorry I should have told you that information. My SSD is a Samsung Evo 970 pro NVME SSD 1TB (just got it today) and my hardrive is a seagate something and it's also 1TB. Sorry if it sounds like i'm on edge i'm in a 82 degree house right now because my AC is broken. Here is an idea could I just upgrade to a free version of Windows 11 and choose my SSD as the download storage?

Where things download or applications install to has nothing to do with Win 10 o 11.

And upgrading to Win 11 has nothing to do with this potential clone thing.

How much space is consumed on your current C drive?
Please post a screencap of your Disk Management window.

 

[animefan8910]

I cant send a picture on my computer but I know that they are both 1TB and I have 78.3 GB left on my Hardrive and 983GB on my SSD

 

[USAFRet]

Upload your pic to imgur.com, and post the link here.

 

[USAFRet]

I cant send a picture on my computer but I know that they are both 1TB and I have 78.3 GB left on my Hardrive and 983GB on my SSD

But...to clone from HDD to SSD, the actual consumed space needs to be below 800GB.
So, you need to free up some space on the current source drive, the HDD.

And as said, you can't split off "only Windows".

 

[animefan8910]

But...to clone from HDD to SSD, the actual consumed space needs to be below 800GB.
So, you need to free up some space on the current source drive, the HDD.

And as said, you can't split off "only Windows".

Ah I See that is a bummer because most of my files are steam games. Let me guess If I download a free version of Windows 11 and try to put it on my SSD that would not work either? Since it is not possible to only copy windows could I do that instead?

 

[Lafong]

To reduce the size of your current installation, you could:

run Disk Cleanup from within Windows.....

or move some of your personal data from the current installation to a totally different drive

or temporarily uninstall some applications.

Whatever you have to do to get the occupied space size down.

If you can't or won't do that:

You could use imaging rather than cloning to move "everything" on the current drive to the new drive. Imaging is a close cousin of cloning and would have the same result.

Imaging shouldn't require you to slim down the current application first, but it would require that you have free space of maybe 600 GB on some other drive...perhaps an external.

 

[USAFRet]

Ah I See that is a bummer because most of my files are steam games. Let me guess If I download a free version of Windows 11 and try to put it on my SSD that would not work either? Since it is not possible to only copy windows could I do that instead?

Stop with the new OS thing. That is just adding complexity.

This can easily be done otherwise.
Especially if Steam games are in the mix.

Please give us a FULL rundown of ALL drives in the system and what you have available, and what is on them.

 

[USAFRet]

You could use imaging rather than cloning to move "everything" on the current drive to the new drive. Imaging is a close cousin of cloning and would have the same result.

Imaging requires a whole other 1TB or larger drive, to temporarily hold the image.

Let's see what he actually has before we go down that road.

 

[animefan8910]

To reduce the size of your current installation, you could:

run Disk Cleanup from within Windows.....

or move some of your personal data from the current installation to a totally different drive

or temporarily uninstall some applications.

Whatever you have to do to get the occupied space size down.

If you can't or won't do that:

You could use imaging rather than cloning to move "everything" on the current drive to the new drive. Imaging is a close cousin of cloning and would have the same result.

Imaging shouldn't require you to slim down the current application first, but it would require that you have free space of maybe 600 GB on some other drive...perhaps an external.

What it sounds like is this would be more easy to just put all my games on the SSD and just use it to make games faster (which believe it or not was one of my goals, but just have my Hardrive store all my games and files and make the SSD the main boot with windows 10 .)

 

[USAFRet]

What it sounds like is this would be more easy to just put all my games on the SSD and just use it to make games faster (which believe it or not was one of my goals, but just have my Hardrive store all my games and files and make the SSD the main boot with windows 10 .)

Yes, you can do it that way.
Moving Steam games to a different drive is trivially easy.


To move an already installed game
Games library
Right click the game
Properties
Local Files
Move Install Folder

 

[animefan8910]

Yes, you can do it that way.
Moving Steam games to a different drive is trivially easy.


To move an already installed game
Games library
Right click the game
Properties
Local Files
Move Install Folder

Mark this as solved then I will just do that Since I really don't want to just go through my files and delete things. I guess I could just buy an external hard drive and copy them on there, but I already dropped 150 dollars on this thing so It can be a glorious game storage, or Ill just start with a clean version of windows and go the external hard drive route.

 

[TerryLaze]

I DO NOT WANT any other files on my SSD other then Windows thats it.

Here is an idea could I just upgrade to a free version of Windows 11 and choose my SSD as the download storage?

What we have here is, I think, an issue of misscomunication, do you really want to clone?

Yes you can just connect the ssd, download windows 11 to a usb drive disconnect every other drive except the ssd, boot from the usb and install windows 11 on the new ssd.
If you connected windows 10 with an email then you can use that same email to activate windows 11.
After you changed the boot order in bios you can re connect the other drives and everything will work, you will still have windows 10 on your harddrive that you can keep as a backup in case anything happens or you can delete it for the free space.

Why can't they have it you install the damn thing and set it as primary boot and then it works with the Windows 10 on your hardrive.

You could do this, but what would be the point? You want the ssd to have better speed in windows, if you keep windows on the hard drive it's still going to be slow,

 

[animefan8910]

What we have here is, I think, an issue of misscomunication, do you really want to clone?

Yes you can just connect the ssd, download windows 11 to a usb drive disconnect every other drive except the ssd, boot from the usb and install windows 11 on the new ssd.
If you connected windows 10 with an email then you can use that same email to activate windows 11.
After you changed the boot order in bios you can re connect the other drives and everything will work, you will still have windows 10 on your harddrive that you can keep as a backup in case anything happens or you can delete it for the free space.

You could do this, but what would be the point? You want the ssd to have better speed in windows, if you keep windows on the hard drive it's still going to be slow,

Yes That is what I was Asking. I was wondering since I would have to clone Windows 10 from the Hardrive to the SSD could I just download Windows 11 on a flash drive and then change my boot order to my SSD in the Bios and still have all my files instead of starting fresh.

 

[USAFRet]

Yes That is what I was Asking. I was wondering since I would have to clone Windows 10 from the Hardrive to the SSD could I just download Windows 11 on a flash drive and then change my boot order to my SSD in the Bios and still have all my files instead of starting fresh.

Files, yes. Sort of.
Applications, no.

You're trying to do too many things at once here.
Changing drives and changing OS.

One at a time.


Forget the Win 11 for now.

Clone from the HDD to the SSD.
As mentioned above, you NEED to get the actual consumed space below 800GB to clone into a 1TB target drive.

 

[animefan8910]

Files, yes. Sort of.
Applications, no.

You're trying to do too many things at once here.
Changing drives and changing OS.

One at a time.


Forget the Win 11 for now.

Clone from the HDD to the SSD.
As mentioned above, you NEED to get the actual consumed space below 800GB to clone into a 1TB target drive.

Like I said before if to clone is my only option then there is no real reason to do it. Plus I really don't want random software on my computer so there is that as well. I have downloaded alot of my steam games and they are snappy and my windows is also alot more snappy when I run games on the SSD. So i think that will be my solution thanks for the help and sorry for the confusion.