Move Windows from one SSD to another, Please help

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  1. Posts : 17
    win 10
       #1

    Move Windows from one SSD to another, Please help


    Hi,

    I have a Samsung SSD 1 TB where I have installed windows 10 on it and it also has some games and other data along with it...So the total used disk space is 720 gb,

    I have another empty SSD 120gb,

    Now i want to move/copy the Windows OS data alone to the 120gb disk and boot from it, I want those games and other data untouched on the 1TB drive...

    Is this possible? I have tried some tools called minitool partition wizard, Easeus, AOMEI and they all said the target drive (120gb) is smaller than source drive(1TB), Its trying to clone everything from source to target,

    Is there any way to just clone the windows data alone so that i can boot from 120gb and delete the windows data from 1 TB?

    Any help please?
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  2. Posts : 8,057
    windows 10
       #2

    If you try clone the whole disk you will get that error you need to clone c and any uefi or system reserve if you then have it with the old disk they will have the same disk signature so you may have problems
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  3. Posts : 17
    win 10
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Those tools i mentioned only have that option to migrate os and it clones the whole disk, I dont know how to specifically choose the windows os alone....Also i dont have any system reserved partition, just one partition, the problem is the target drive is smaller(120gb) in size than the source drive(1TB)...
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  4. Posts : 15,441
    Windows10
       #4

    josephkarthic said:
    Those tools i mentioned only have that option to migrate os and it clones the whole disk, I dont know how to specifically choose the windows os alone....Also i dont have any system reserved partition, just one partition, the problem is the target drive is smaller(120gb) in size than the source drive(1TB)...
    You would have to move things from C drive to a separate partition until storage on C Drive is less than 120 GB.
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  5. Posts : 6,247
    Windows 11 Pro - Windows 7 HP - Lubuntu
       #5

    josephkarthic said:
    Now i want to move/copy the Windows OS data alone to the 120gb disk and boot from it, I want those games and other data untouched on the 1TB drive...
    Is there any way to just clone the windows data alone so that i can boot from 120gb and delete the windows data from 1 TB?
    To move only the OS Partition and the EFI an MSR partition is possible but will take a lot of time and you will need a working temporary drive (1T). Data and games will remain on the current drive. Unfortunately games won't work as they were installed on same OS drive and now they are on a separate drive.

    My suggestion is to do a clean install on the 120G SSD, move C:\users (120G) to D:\users (1T) during installation and reinstall your games (if allowed) on the 1T SSD. That is the configuration I have on my computer.
    Move Windows from one SSD to another, Please help-my_tree.jpg
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  6. Posts : 18,424
    Windows 11 Pro
       #6

    @Megahertz is correct. The only way to do what you want to do is a clean install of Windows to the smaller SSD, start re-installing things, this time with data/games on the 1TB drive.
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  7. Posts : 7,871
    Windows 11 Pro 64 bit
       #7

    cereberus said:
    You would have to move things from C drive to a separate partition until storage on C Drive is less than 120 GB.
    That's what I would do. Then use Macrium Reflect to image the reduced size drive to an external drive the recover that image to the new drive.
      My Computers


  8. Posts : 2,123
    Windows 11 Pro (latest update ... forever anal)
       #8

    If you just want a (boot) drive with Windows 10, swap out the 1TB drive for the 120GB and do a clean install.

    Then swap back.
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  9. Posts : 4,511
    several
       #9

    Is there any way to just clone the windows data alone
    Yes.

    You could create either a wim image or a diskgenius image , excluding what you dont want.

    Then you can create the partitions on the target disk, apply the diskgenius image and then use bcdboot to populate the esp partition.


    It is simpler to do the exclusions with diskgenius, because you can just click the ADD button and browse to the files/folders you want to exclude.

    1. Rt click the source partition and select "clone partition to image file"

    Move Windows from one SSD to another, Please help-dg-imagefile1.jpg


    2. In the window that pops up, click "Settings"

    Move Windows from one SSD to another, Please help-dg-imagefile2.jpg

    3. Then click "ADD" to browse to any file/folder to exclude from the image. You can add as many exclusions as you like.

    When you have finished adding exclusions, click OK

    Move Windows from one SSD to another, Please help-dg-imagefile3.jpg
    Last edited by SIW2; 16 Jan 2022 at 03:32.
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  10. Posts : 4,511
    several
       #10

    A possible alternative is to create a wim image ( with exclusions), name it install.wim and put it in the sources folder of the installation media. Then you can do the installation to the120gb disk from the booted install media which uses the new install.wim you just created..

    If you have a lot of exclusions, it is a bit fiddly creating the wimscript.ini ( the exclusions list) for wim capture. You might also have to split the wim if it is over 4gb.

    Diskgenius is probably the easiest way.
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