Migrate windows to a new drive without a full reinstall?

[klippenwald]

Is it possible to move the OS to a new drive, like a SSD, without having to reinstall everything?

 

[klippenwald]

Would that boot at all? Usually drive cloning fails when it comes to the OS, a repair install is required at that point.

 

[captjack5169]

Acronis will solve this issue and its like $20 you can back up the whole drive and restore it to the new one. I have done this many times it works perfect.

 

[kitsunestarwind]

Acronis is fantastic, have done this many times, my win7 install has been through 2 PCs (AMD to Intel) and from HDD to SSD to New SSD with no reinstall all working perfectly, at most if u run win7 is do a startup repair so it can change the drive identifier string in the bootmgr to get it to boot

 

[math1337]

Drive cloning usually works unless you change other stuff. Changing BIOS settings or CPUs can necessitate a repair install.

 

[captjack5169]

Acronis, does cloning as well, it can be a pain though if the hardware you are cloning from is dead or you do have an extra port to plug the new drive in. In either case Acronis does them both.

 

[klippenwald]

Best answer selected by Klippenwald.

 

[klippenwald]

I already have Acronis for my backup software. I'll use it for the clone/transfer.

Thank you for your help!!

 

[captjack5169]

you are welcome

 

[nikorr]

This topic has been closed by Nikorr.