Can't Migrate Windows To A Smaller Drive Without Losing FIles

Hello,
I have Windows 10 on a 2TB HDD with about 1TB of the HDD full. I would like to migrate Windows to an 80GB SSD but I can't find anyway to do this without cloning the entire drive, which I can't do because there is too much content on the HDD. Is there any way to migrate Windows to a different drive whilst keeping all user files and installed applications on the old drive so I can have two drives in my system, the SSD for boot and the HDD for storage and applications.
Thanks :)

I thought of something, but not sure if it will work. Create a second partition on the large disk. Then relocate your user folders in a folder inside the new partition (right-click, select Properties and go to Location tab). Move all your data there to free the C partition. Also relocate the Program Files folder to the second partition (done from Registry). There are programs to transfer the installed applications to another place, I don't recall them now. Move any other folder in C to the new partition. Once you have decreased the data size to less than 80GB you can clone the C partition to SSD. Boot from the SSD, check that you data are accessible and that your applications load properly, then you can delete the first partition on the large disk (assuming you have made the SSD bootable and can boot from there) and expand the second partition to take all space. Of course for this to work SSD partition must be C and booting into Windows from it, while the partition on the disk where you relocated your data must have the same drive letter as when you relocated them.

It sounds like a lot of trouble, but it should work and it is certainly faster than doing a clean-install.

spapakons said:

I thought of something, but not sure if it will work. Create a second partition on the large disk. Then relocate your user folders in a folder inside the new partition (right-click, select Properties and go to Location tab). Move all your data there to free the C partition. Also relocate the Program Files folder to the second partition (done from Registry). There are programs to transfer the installed applications to another place, I don't recall them now. Move any other folder in C to the new partition. Once you have decreased the data size to less than 80GB you can clone the C partition to SSD. Boot from the SSD, check that you data are accessible and that your applications load properly, then you can delete the first partition on the large disk (assuming you have made the SSD bootable and can boot from there) and expand the second partition to take all space. Of course for this to work SSD partition must be C and booting into Windows from it, while the partition on the disk where you relocated your data must have the same drive letter as when you relocated them.

It sounds like a lot of trouble, but it should work and it is certainly faster than doing a clean-install.

Thanks spapakons.
am not very keen to mess around with partitions but I have so many installed applications that it will probably be the best option. If, however, I wanted to do a clean install of Windows how do I find out my product key?
Thanks.

Axeinfection said:

Thanks spapakons.
am not very keen to mess around with partitions but I have so many installed applications that it will probably be the best option. If, however, I wanted to do a clean install of Windows how do I find out my product key?
Thanks.

Use Mini-Tool Partition Wizard Free to make the partitions , it's a pretty good program and very reliable....The product key # for your PC from when you upgraded is saved on the microsoft server and you should be able to just install a new copy without having to enter a product key.