How to Move Windows 8/8.1 to SSD Without Reinstalling Windows and Applications
Installing a solid-state drive (SSD) is one of the best upgrades you can make to your computer, but moving your Windows 8/8.1 installation to a small drive can be tricky. Here's how to install an SSD without reinstalling Windows and applications from scratch.
What You Need to Move Windows 8/8.1 from HDD to SSD
There are a variety of ways to go about this, but we've found this to be the simplest and most reliable method. The following is what you'll need:
- Your current hard disk, with Windows, installed. To make it easy, we'll call this disk for short - that is, the disk you're migrating from - your "current hard disk" throughout the process.
- A solid-state disk. This is the disk you'll be migrating to. To get a rough idea of how big it should be, go to your current disk, navigate to C:\Users\ and right-click on your user folder. Click Properties, and markdown how much space that folder takes up. Head to My Computer and note how much space Drive C: has filled up, and subtract your user folder's size from C:'s total. That's how big your SSD needs to be, though I'd give yourself a good deal of free space for future updates and new programs.
- A backup of all your data. Since it's impossible to clone only part of a drive, you'll need to remove your music, movies, and other personal files from your current disk before migrating Windows to the SSD, which means you'd better back up your data somewhere else. Just make sure that data is safe and recoverable as we'll be restoring it later on.
- Qiling Backup. This is the program we'll be using to migrate your installation. It's easy to use, can perform multiple operations at once.
Guide: How to Move Windows 8/8.1 from HDD to SSD with Qiling Backup
Follow the step by step guides provided below to transfer Windows 8 from HDD to SSD in the simplest way.
Tip
If you are trying to clone a Windows system to a new HDD or SSD disk, empty the disk in advance. One more thing that you can do is to convert your HDD/SSD disk to MBR or GPT - exact the same as your current system disk, which will allow you to effortlessly boot system after cloning Windows system.
Your Reliable Drive Clone Software
- Make a full copy of contents on a disk and move your data, system, or apps to another hard drive.
- It supports OS migration to avoid reinstalling the operating system.
- It clones your disk sector by sector, and nothing is left behind.
Let's see how to clone your current Windows OS to a new HDD/SSD without reinstallation Windows OS now:
Step 1. Connect the new HDD/SSD to your PC
Step 2. Run Qiling Backup to start system cloning
Select "System Clone" on the "Tools and utilities" pagfe by clicking the icon at the left top corner.
Step 3. Choose the destination disk - HDD/SSD to save Windows system
Choose the new HDD or SSD as your target disk for saving the cloned Windows system.
Step 4: Then click "Proceed" to start cloning Windows system to HDD/SSD now.
If your destination disk is an SSD drive, do remember to tick "Optimize for SSD" option if the target is SSD.
After this, insert your new HDD or SSD into your computer and reboot PC, change the boot order to set computer boot from new HDD/SSD with cloned Windows 10 system:
- Restart PC and press F2 or F8 to enter BIOS settings.
- In the Boot option, select new HDD/SSD as the new boot drive and save all the changes.
- Exit BIOS and restart the computer, you should be able to see the Windows system running on your new disk without any problems.
Follow these simple steps, you can migrate Windows 8/8.1 from HDD to new SSD with Qiling Backup easily. Besides, Qiling Backup can also back up and restore the Windows 8/8.1 OS and data on your HDD and SSD.
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