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Move windows 10 to a new drive

Is there a way I can move my windows 10 from my SSD to a new m.2 NVMe SSD, without losing data? All i want to do is move the windows and nothing else.
Hi Anoosh,

This is Wil, one of the independent advisor, an expert with Windows 10 and a fellow Windows 10 user like you. I understand your concern about moving the operating system from one storage to another.

There are 2 ways to do that. The first one is to reinstall the operating system to the storage device, though you would need to migrate your files afterward from the old operating system to the new one by simply making a copy of your files to an external hard drive and copying it to the new storage after installing Windows on it. You would also have to reinstall all your 3rd party programs to the new drive.

The second way to do it is to clone your SSD to the new m.2 NVMe SSD. This is an easier option however you would need to use an application that would let you clone your SSD to the new m.2 NVMe SSD however most of the reliable and good cloning applications are paid applications.

But regardless of whichever option you would choose, it will still be a good practice to backup your personal files first on an external storage device if in case something goes wrong with the migration.

I hope my suggestions help you. If you need further assistance please do reply back and I will respond as quickly as possible. Have a nice day.


Thanks,
Wilfred P.
Independent Advisor

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I used the Macrium Reflect tool to clone my windows and move them, however, now it's showing my m.2 has only a maximum amount of space of 110, which is the same as my SSD, even though it has 220gb. So I went into my disk management and its showing I have 111.78gb  from my m.2 unallocated. When I try to allocate it makes a whole separate volume. I have attached screenshots of the issue. Hope you can understand

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Also i forgot to mention but the drives I coloured out with a blue pen have nothing to do with the cloning or anything (I have 3 drives hooked up to my PC; a 110GB SSD, 1TB HDD, 230GB M.2 NVMe SSD) and the HDD has nothing to do with the clone.

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Yes, that is normal that if you would allocate the unallocated space, it will really create a new partition. What you actually need to do is unallocated it again and then right-click on the 110gb allocated space on your m.2 drive and choose to extend volume. Use the unallocated space to extend the volume. If that fails, I would suggest you format the m.2 drive and just create a single partition on it so you can use the whole 220gb of it.

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In summary since the clone, my m.2 NVMe SSD has split into 2 different parts, one containing the windows (Drive E) and the other one which is empty (Drive F).

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Please see my reply above.

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The "extend volume" is grayed out. Do i have to format the m.2 drive?

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I tried formatting the M.2 however the "format" option in disk management is grayed out. 

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I would advise you to create a Windows 10 bootable flash drive and perform the format from there to make sure that there won't be any problem with it. Once you are done formatting the drive, you can also create the partition there before your restart the computer and unplug the flash drive.

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Last updated May 8, 2024 Views 68,499 Applies to: