Moving windows 7 to a new hard drive. Ways to transfer the operating system to another drive

Hello dear readers of the blog www.site. Today we will complete the description of the process transfer operating system Windows 7 with saving user profiles, installed programs, data and settings on two hard drives. One of the drives is a solid state drive SSD 60 GB, the second is a conventional mechanical HDD.

The decision to make a dual configuration hard drives was taken after the volumes occupied by the operating system and user data. Due to the fact that they clearly exceeded 60 GB in total, it was not possible to transfer everything to one small SSD drive.

Looking ahead, I will say that for desktop computer this decision turned out to be not only successful, but also very profitable from a financial point of view. The total cost of a small SSD and a mechanical HDD is still less than the cost of one large SSD.

Even if you don’t feel sorry for money “for your own”, most likely, the volume of one SSD is really not enough. For example, my photo folders alone take up about 130 GB. And this despite the fact that the photos are mostly in jpg format. Who's in RAW? What if video? This I mean that you still have to either install another HDD, or connect an external one.

As for the speed of the system, there were initially serious concerns about whether the transfer of profiles would negatively affect it Windows users 7 on a conventional mechanical disk. Fears were not confirmed - everything "flies". No, for sure the response of the computer would be even faster if the solid-state drive contained not only the operating system, but also the data. But something tells me that in most practical cases this difference would not be very noticeable.

We return to the process. Last time we migrated the Windows 7 operating system to an SSD drive and user profiles to a mechanical HDD. To transfer user profiles, we tried to use the standard for Windows 7 wizard "Transfer Tool Windows Data».

Unfortunately, the result was not quite the one we would like to see - the settings of some programs were not saved. This can be partly explained by the fact that with such a profile transfer, the absolute paths to the files change and some programs do not find them. Apparently, "Windows Easy Transfer" makes sense to use to solve those tasks for which it is directly intended. In a word, this is not Linux for you, where you can mount any partition on any disk in \home.

Today I will describe the second, very simple, way to transfer Windows 7 user folders to another drive. The idea of ​​such a transfer was suggested to me by the Microsoft wizard at the moment when it refused to expand the saved profiles to the second disk and I had to deceive it by creating symbolic links. Here we are using them to the fullest.

Transferring Windows 7 User Folders Using Symbolic Links

We return to the moment when the preliminary optimization of the space occupied by the system on the C: drive has already been done, but the original user profiles from the C: drive have not yet been deleted. We copy the user directories to any available place or immediately to where they are supposed to be placed in the end.

It can be done different ways, the main thing is to save permissions on files and folders and not lose system and hidden ones. For example, using the command xcopy V command line with administrator rights:

xcopy C:\Users\UserName\ X:\Users\UserName\ /E /H /O /X

username– name of the user profile directory;

X:\Users\UserName– destination folder;

/E

/H– hidden and system files are copied;

/O- Access control lists ACLs and data about the owner are saved;

/X– File audit information is copied.

Or, also on the command line, with the command robocopy:

robocopy C:\Users\UserName\ X:\Users\UserName\ /E /COPYALL /XJ

C:\Users\UserName, X:\Users\UserName– source and result;

/E– directories with subdirectories are copied, including empty ones;

/COPYALL– all information about files is copied (data about the owner, audit information, etc.);

/XJ— exclude connection points.

Team robocopy interesting in that it is designed for data replication and can remove "extra" files from the replica. It can be successfully used to create backups without completely overwriting all files.

13 comments

Well, he did everything right. Rebooted, everything worked ok. And then even the OS stopped loading. I can't even reinstall Windows. Only black screen.

• Rustam, your problem cannot be related to the transfer of profiles. In any case, on C: \, even if you did not specifically create a new user whose profile cannot be transferred, as recommended in the article, there is an "Administrator". If everything is in order with the system itself, then if the second disk with the transferred profiles is unavailable, such horrors cannot happen - Windows will boot. Tell us in more detail at what point the black screen occurs, after which it started. And what does it mean

  I can't even reinstall Windows.

1. That's just the point that I had only one Administrator profile. Then I transferred it from SSD to HHD. Then, on drive D, where I transferred the Administrator profile, I made the Users folder invisible. Rebooted the laptop. Windows won't boot. Even the Windows logo does not appear. I decided to reinstall the OS, in AHCI mode the installation does not start at all. I switch to IDE mode, it stumbles at the “installation begins” step. Further nowhere. Although I had already installed the same copy of Windows with this flash drive on the same ultrabook before.
   It looks like something is wrong in the bios or what?

   I want to connect a laptop to a computer and format all disks. Could you tell me how to connect a laptop and see all its contents from a computer?

   • Something very complex you have conceived. The content is easier to view by booting from a Live CD. For example, Parted Magic with GParted. I wrote about him. I would also like to understand what kind of Windows you are installing - problems with AHCI are confusing. Again, you can partition and format disks by running Windows installation 7. How to do bootable flash drive with Windows I described .

Thanks for the Parted Magic program. Downloaded, but apparently something in the tables is not right. When trying to create or format a partition, an Input / Otput error during read or during write on dev / sda error is generated. Then the HHD and SSD boot sectors in the BIOS generally disappear. I don't understand what to do. It looks like something with GPT, MBR tables. Is there any way to fix the tables? By the way Asus laptop Zenbook UX32A.

• MBR and GPT are not tables, but records at the beginning of the disk. They cannot affect the visibility of drives in the BIOS. As far as I understand, your ultrabook does not assume independent SSD usage, but as a cache for the HDD. I think that the solution to the problem should be found here. Can this laptop actually work with an SSD as a separate drive?

Yes, the SSD is meant to be a cache, but I installed the OS on the SSD. And everything worked great. Then I decided to move the user folders to another drive. Transferred and... 🙂

• I can’t understand how you contrived to transfer a single user to another disk - when copying a profile, there should have been a huge number of errors due to file locks. But most importantly, I can not understand how even this wrong action could affect the inability to reinstall the system. There must be something else. M.b. did you change something in the BIOS?

Well, to transfer a single user, I created a temporary administrator, and after the transfer, I deleted this temporary administrator account. When copying user files, there were a couple of questions, but I skipped them. I don’t understand about the impossibility of reinstalling the system (It’s just that the impossibility of installing a new OS appeared even before I dug into the BIOS. But even after resetting the BIOS changes, it’s still the same.

• Yeah. It is now clear with the transfer, that is, a service Account nevertheless it was. But with a laptop it is completely incomprehensible. If you manage to solve the problem, and I have no doubt about it, be sure to unsubscribe. Very interesting. Unfortunately, without a similar sample at hand, it is problematic to give you some practical advice. Sometimes the solution is hidden under the very nose. I remember how we once fought half the night with a server that refused to start after changing the controller. What they didn't do. Thank God they didn't really ruin it. But it turned out that by this moment they had already gone crazy and were trying to boot from the wrong device.

I made a bootable Acronis flash drive.
And it gave an error "E000101F4: No hard drive found". How can this be if the BIOS has this situation:

Boot Opton Priorities


I go to
Hard Drive BBS Priorities
and there:
Boot Option #1
Boot Option #2

• It may very well be. Acronis can easily not see something. For example, for me it does not see disks connected via USB to a computer with a motherboard. Intel board DX58SO. Previously, too, constantly something came up of the same plan. To create backups, I now mainly use Live-CD with .

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good afternoon, please tell me How without reinstalling. I explain my situation: My Windows 7 is on an old 120 GB hard drive that is NOT partitioned, is it possible to move the system to a new one HDD with a capacity of 1.5 TB, but unfortunately it is not empty, it has two partitions. One partition with data (nothing should happen to them), the other is not occupied, and it is necessary to transfer the operating system to it. I want to use the old hard drive for file storage. Alexander.

How to move Windows to another drive

Friends, a few more people made the same request, and before starting, a small note: If you are a novice user, then this article is given to you first of all for review. Before you start, read everything from beginning to end and think about whether it suits you this way maybe it will be easier for you to just reinstall Windows. Basically, any operations related to the Acronis program are carried out by professionals. If you doubt your abilities, be careful, practice from the beginning to virtual machine or contact the experts.
Personally, I always work everything out on a virtual machine, sometimes for several days, then on my work computer, and then I move on to the customer's machine. Many in their letters say that they did not succeed in this or that. I think there is nothing terrible in this, do not be afraid of mistakes and failures, win in the end. The same experienced users also, not everything worked out right away, the whole difference between a pro and a simple person is in experience, and friends gain experience quickly, but you can’t sit in one place and do nothing. Let today you do not succeed, but you will succeed tomorrow. Be sure to make backups and in case of unfamiliar and unforeseen situations, roll back.
To show how move Windows to another drive, I simulated a similar situation on my computer. There are also two hard drives:

• The first hard disk is NOT partitioned and is designated in Disk Management as Disk (C:) with a capacity of 465.00 GB, the operating system is installed on it.

First of all, what move Windows to another drive create a backup of the current operating system in the Acronis program true image Home 2011 using boot disk or Acronis flash drives. How to make bootable media? I won’t repeat, read our Acronis article how to use it. How to boot from media by changing the boot priority? Also read with us or How to install a boot from a USB flash drive.
Let me also remind you, if you, like me, contacted Acronis, do not forget that it often confuses drive letters when working with bootable media.
After creating a backup of the current Windows 7, you just need to deploy it to a free partition of the new hard drive (E :) 350.59 GB.

• Digression: If you don't need the old hard drive, before deploying the backup, you need to turn off the computer and remove the old hard drive completely, so there will be fewer problems with two operating systems.

As a result, we will have two identical systems on one computer, but one will be loaded. Next, using the EasyBCD program (a very simple way, link to our article) or whoever wants the Bootrec.exe command and the command line, we will boot the two operating systems. Next, we will remove one Windows 7 from the boot menu, located on the old disk, and we will use this disk as a file storage, that's all.

Result: All data on all hard drives are safe and sound, including the old 465.00 GB. The operating system is now on one of the partitions of the new hard drive(E:) 350.59 GB and downloads smoothly, which is what we wanted at the beginning. In the future, if you completely get rid of the old 465.00 GB hard drive and remove it, you may have problems booting Windows 7, you can always fix them with the help of our articles: Restoring the Windows 7 bootloader, How to restore the Windows 7 system. BOOTMGR is missing in Windows 7 . In the case of using the EasyBCD program, it's generally simple, you can leave a boot record on any disk you want.

So loaded into our program, choose Backup. Disks.

We create a backup of our Windows 7 located on the disk (C:) 465.00 GB, put a tick on it and Next.

In this window, you need to select a location for storing the backup with our operating system, click Browse.

The disk (C :) is excluded according to the rules, (E :) is also excluded, but (D :) 1030.35 GB is just right, by the way, the volume is large, and there is a lot of free space. Select it once with the mouse.

We write the name of the backup in the File name field, for example, No. 13 and OK. Further

So the Windows 7 backup is created, if you open my computer, then the drive (D :) we can see it,

now deploy our backup to a new hard disk partition (E :) 350.59 GB,

• Note: If you do not need the old hard drive at all, it is better to disconnect and remove it in this place.

Choose Recovery. Disks.

Review

find our backup number 13. As you remember, we have it on disk (D :),

we go into it, see our Backup, select it and press the OK button.

As you can see, Acronis wants to restore the default backup to the (C:) 465.00 GB partition, but we need (E:), still check the Next box.

In this window, select the New storage option.

And only in this window we select our disk (E :) 350.59 GB and Accept

We press Change default settings

The Primary item should be checked and read: Thus, the partition will become bootable even when restoring to a partition or disk other than the original one. Accept.

We see what is being restored. Proceed.

We wait. Operating room is deployed Windows systems 7 to disk (E:) 350.59 GB. In theory, it should immediately boot from it. OK and reboot.

Unfortunately we are loading old Windows 7. As we agreed, now the easiest way to achieve booting of two operating systems is to install the EasyBCD utility, that's all step by step guide read with us.
Or another way, boot from installation disk Windows 7 and select recovery, then command line.

it is clear that now it should have a different letter. We go to disk management, see our disk safe and sound, assign it a different letter and that's it.

Change the letter or path to the drive, assign any, for example (F:).

The drive (F:) appears, which we can use as a file storage.

If we don’t need any menu when booting the computer, go to Control Panel->System and Security->System->Advanced Settings->Advanced Tab->Startup and Recovery->Settings->Select the Windows 7 we need in the drop-down list, in in our case, the second one, we can also uncheck the item Display recovery options and by default it will boot to Windows 7, which is on the new hard drive.

May need reactivation Windows 7.

Consider the situation where you have more than one hard drive in your system. The operating system is already installed on one of them, and on the second you installed Windows 7. There was a need to remove a hard drive from the system on which Windows 7 is not installed. But it turned out that without this disk your system does not want to boot.
This happened because one of the three conditions for a successful boot was no longer met:
1. The drive from which you are booting must be active;
2. MBR must be compatible with bootmgr;
3. The active drive must contain operating system boot files. For Windows 7, this is the bootmgr file and the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store located in the hidden and system folder Boot.
Using the installation disc or disc Windows recovery 7.
If these discs are available, transfer boot files is not difficult. Physically disconnect the "unnecessary" hard drive, boot from the disk by setting in the BIOS CD-DVD drive first boot device, enter the recovery environment. After the scan and search for installed operating systems is completed, perform "Startup Repair". The recovery program will prepare the hard drive as needed and copy the necessary files to it. After the reboot, the ability to download will be restored. If you do not have an installation disk or a recovery disk, you can use the method described below.
Transferring boot files using the bcdboot.exe utility
It is conditionally possible to divide the upcoming operation into three stages, corresponding to the three necessary conditions for a successful download.
1. Make the disk active. There are two ways to make the desired section active.
First: enter the Disk Management snap-in (Win + R, type diskmgmt.msc in the Run line and click OK) and see what letter is assigned to the first left partition of the disk that you plan to leave. It is this partition that we will make bootable and active: click right click click on the selected section and select the "Make section active" context menu item. Note that this section must have a "main" attribute.
Second: run a command prompt with administrator privileges. All commands, which will be discussed below, will be executed sequentially without exiting the command line. DISKPART
list disk
sel disk X
list partition
sel part 1
active
exit
where X is the number of the disk to be left in the disk list (list disk command).
2. Rewrite the bootloader (MBR) (make it compatible with bootmgr):
To do this, you need the bootsect.exe utility, which, in the absence of an installation disk, can be obtained here. Download and unzip it in advance, for example, to the root directory of the C: partition.
c:\bootsect /nt60 All /force
note: experience shows that if there are 2 or more in the configuration HDD key/force is required.
3. Transfer the BCD and the bootmgr file to the new active partition:
bcdboot %Windir% /l ru-Ru /s С:
- key /l - choice language settings download manager. If your system is not Russian, use other values ​​for this key, for example, for in English- en-Us, for German - de-DE, etc.
- switch /s - defines the volume letter assigned to the target system partition to which the boot environment files are copied. This is the section that we have made active. Since the command firmware defaults to the current system partition(before removing the hard disk - this is partition D:), the use of this key with the letter of the expected boot partition is mandatory!
Checking and editing BCD. Run the command: bcdedit /store C:\boot\bcd
Based on the results of the command, check the parameters:
1. in the "Windows Boot Manager" section, the device parameter must be equal to the letter of the new active partition, in our case - C:.
2. in section " Windows boot"The device and osdevice parameters must be equal to the letter of the partition on which the Windows directories are currently located. In our case, this is also C:.
3. in case of inconsistency, make the necessary changes using the commands:
bcdedit /store C:\boot\bcd /set (bootmgr) device partition=C:
bcdedit /store C:\boot\bcd /set (current) device partition=C:
bcdedit /store C:\boot\bcd /set (current) osdevice partition=C:
Usually, the execution of commands is not required, but it does not hurt to check. Thus, transferring boot files to another drive is not such a difficult task.
Instead of a conclusion, or "Russian-language multi-boot menu". Due to the fact that the startup repair program running from the recovery environment uses the "default" parameters, the language of the boot manager becomes English. In the presence of a single bootable system, this is not noticeable, but in the presence of a multiboot menu, it is striking. If this does not suit you, run on the command line:
bcdboot %Windir% /l en-Ru
You need to execute it after transferring the download files to a new partition.

Buying a new SSD or HDD doesn't have to mean installing Windows from scratch. On a new hard drive, if the old one is still connected to the computer, Windows with all its settings and installed software can be transferred using special software. This process is called operating system migration. It involves cloning the system partition (disk C and boot sector) to another hard drive. Such operations can be Acronis software True Image, various builds of software from Paragon, including the Paragon Migrate OS to SSD utility specially designed for this purpose, as well as products from the developer AOMEI. But while products from Acronis and Paragon can only be used on a paid basis, software from AOMEI is available completely free of charge.

The ability to transfer Windows to another hard drive is contained in two AOMEI products - in the program for Reserve copy AOMEI Backupper Professional and AOMEI Partition Assistant Disk Manager. You can use the Windows Migration feature in AOMEI Backupper Professional for free only for a month, until the full-featured trial version expires. But with the help of the free Standard edition of the AOMEI Partition Assistant disk manager, you can constantly transfer Windows from one hard drive to another. But not only this point makes AOMEI Partition Assistant a profitable solution for moving Windows to another hard drive. This program is, in fact, a single tool for migrating the operating system and allocating space on a new hard drive for the specific needs of the user. Today we will look at how using AOMEI Partition Assistant to transfer Windows to another empty hard disk.

1. Specifics of the operation: required reading

The Windows migration method described below does not preserve the partition structure and data of the target hard drive (the one to which the operating system will be migrated). Therefore, this method is only suitable for cases where nothing should be saved on the target SSD or HDD. For example, in the case of purchasing a new device with unallocated space. Or when connecting a used device whose data is of no value. AOMEI Partition Assistant can transfer Windows to a separate system partition of the target hard drive while preserving the structure of the latter and the data stored on other partitions. In this case, the migration method from the one below will be different. If there is important data on the target hard drive, you cannot use the instruction below.

2. Download and run the program

AOMEI Partition Assistant can be downloaded from the official website of the creators. In the list of editions of the program, you can select the free Standard. Its capabilities will be enough to transfer Windows to another hard drive and create partitions on it (if necessary).

After starting the program, in the center of the window we will see a picture of all connected disks and their partitions - in a tabular version at the top and in a visual format at the bottom. If the target SSD or HDD new, its space will be unallocated as shown in the screenshot.

In this case, we remember its serial number - Disk 1, Disk 2, etc. - and immediately proceed to paragraph 4 of the article.

3. Deleting partitions on the target hard drive with existing layout

Before starting a Windows Transfer operation, target hard disks with the existing markup, you need to get rid of the sections by deleting them. Partition deletion requires special care. If several hard drives with a similar partition structure are connected to the computer, their properties window will help you figure out which one is the target to which you want to transfer Windows. To find out which of the hard drives is displayed as Disk 1, as Disk 2, etc., click on it (on the block of the entire disk, as shown in the screenshot), call context menu and select "Properties".

In the properties window in the first column we will see the brand and model of the hard drive.

Make sure it's selected desired hard disk, and delete its partitions one by one. On each of the sections, we call the context menu and select "Delete Section".

For each of the sections, we confirm the deletion without changing the preset option "Quickly delete section".

When the target hard drive is all displayed as unallocated space, click the button at the top of the "Apply" program window.

Once again, we confirm the decision to delete partitions.

Upon completion of the operation, click "OK".

4. Transfer (migration) Windows to another hard drive

Well, on the target SSD or HDD disk space is not allocated, now we can proceed directly to the process of transferring Windows to it, which is located on the original hard drive and in this moment works. In the AOMEI Partition Assistant window, click the "Wizard" menu and select "Migrate SSD or HDD OS".

Then click on the target disk with unallocated space. Click "Next".

In the next window, the size of the future system partition on the target disk is configured. AOMEI Partition Assistant sets the C drive and Windows boot sector to the same size as the original hard drive by default. If the target disk is not a 60 GB SSD, but a medium with a lot of space, we can drag the system partition slider up to 70-100 GB. This optimal size currently for Windows 7, 8.1 and 10. The remaining space of the target disk will later be given to non-system partitions for data storage. Click "Next".

The work of the wizard is completed - click "Finish".

Returning to the main window of the program, click the button at the top "Apply".

Then we will see another dialog box with a warning that the operation will be carried out in pre-boot mode. We save the files open on the computer, close other active programs and click "Yes" in the AOMEI Partition Assistant window.

The computer will restart, and on the screen we will observe the progress of the Windows transfer operation.

5. Checking the target hard drive

When the operation is completed, the system will boot from the original hard drive. You need to restart the computer again in order to configure the BIOS to boot from the target hard drive and check the operability of the transferred Windows.

For cases of transferring Windows to a single SSD system partition, the process is complete.

6. Create non-system partitions on the target hard drive

Along with Windows, AOMEI Partition Assistant has also moved to the target hard drive. After booting the computer from the target disk, we can use the program to create non-system partitions. We click on the unallocated space after section C, call the context menu (or use the menu of the "Section" program) and select "Create Partition".

In the window that appears, by dragging the slider on the visual block, we select all the available space for the created section or only a part of it. Click "OK".

If the disk space is divided into several partitions, we perform this operation the required number of times. Upon completion of the formation of sections, we apply the planned operations.

We confirm their launch.

Click "OK".

Disk partitioning is complete.

Have a great day!

How to properly transfer Windows 7 from an old hard drive to a new one and then completely remove the old one? The fact is that I bought a 1 TB hard drive, and the old one I have is only 120 GB, it has Windows 7 installed on the system partition (C :), with all the programs I need that I installed for more than one day. The system works well and I have no desire to reinstall it. I talked with repairmen, the answer is the same, it's easier to reinstall, is it? Vitaly.

Porting Windows 7

Hello friends, we have several articles on this topic:

1. Secondly, someone asked on the site.
2. If you have a laptop, then you may find articles useful.
3. If you are interested in the article, visit the special section where from one storage medium to another.

Well, in this article I will show you how to transfer Windows 7 using a boot disk, which can be done in the program itself in 5 minutes.

Vitaly has one hard drive on his computer, it has a system partition (C :), with installed Windows 7, but even if there were a few more local drives, for example with your data, we could also implement Windows 7 porting to a new hard drive, with all additional volumes, using the method below.

You should also know that after the operation, Windows 7 will ask you to re-activate. The described method has been used by me many times and always successfully, but just in case, create a recovery disk, you may need it, it burns in two minutes on a simple CD, if you don’t know how, read:.
To make it easier for you to understand how Windows 7 is transferred to another drive, I’ll show everything to my computer, on purpose I left two hard drives in my system unit, one with 120 GB and Windows 7 installed on it, the other with a blank hard drive for 500 GB.

You need to start with whether you yourself can connect your new hard drive to system unit or not. To help you, our article is to the computer, and if you successfully coped with this, read on. We turn on the computer, the new hard disk is successfully detected in the system.

If your hard drive is unallocated space, then the transfer will also take place. It is not necessary to create a volume. Start -> Computer, right-click on it and open Management, then Disk Management.

Well, now we are rebooting, the computer should boot from bootable media, if you have difficulty changing the boot priority in the BIOS, read.
Main program window Tools and Utilities->Disk Cloning

Auto

Select with the left mouse the Source hard disk from which you want to transfer all the information to another hard disk. In our case, Disk 1 with 120 GB should be selected, click next.