Over time, it can be easy to fill up the hard drive on your PC without realizing it. The best laptops all come with plenty of storage now, but even then, at some point, you might have to upgrade the SSD in your machine, or maybe your drive is just old and you want to replace it before it goes bad. But how do you do that without losing your files? Thankfully, that's possible, as you can move your Windows installation and data to another drive if you need to. This works for Windows 11 as well as older versions of Windows, too.

If you want to move your own Windows installation to a different drive, you can do it through Windows itself, or use a third-party program. Some programs, like EaseUS Partition Master, make it easy to fully clone your drive without any complicated restore process, but these tools are also paid. The built-in Windows solution is a little more convoluted, but it is free, so we'll focus on that one.

What you'll need

In order to move your Windows install to a different drive, you'll need a few things:

• The functioning Windows PC you want to backup
• The drive you want to move Windows to (it needs to be bigger than the source drive).
• An additional external drive to create the backup image,
• A flash drive with at least 16GB to create the recovery image

All of the drives mentioned above should be empty before starting the process, as their content will get deleted for this procedure. There's a chance you'll already have everything you need, but it's still a lot of equipment. If you don't have everything, you can check out some of the options below.

• Samsung 990 Pro

  $110 $140 Save $30

  Storage capacity

  1TB, 2TB, 4TB

  Hardware Interface

  M.2 PCIe 4.0 (x4), NVMe 2.0

  Transfer rate

  Up to 7,450MB/s (read), 6,900MB/s (write)

  TBW

  600 (1TB), 1200 (2TB), 2400 (4TB)

  MTBF

  1.5 million hours

  One of the fastest SSDs on the market, the Samsung 990 Pro is the ideal solution if you're looking for a new SSD for your PC.

  $110 at Best Buy $110 at Amazon $110 at Samsung

• WD 2TB My Passport SSD

  An external SSD like the WD My Passport will be needed to create a system image. You can use an HDD, but this solution is much faster.

  $170 at Amazon

• SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe

  The SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe is a future-ready USB flash drive with both USB Type-C and Type-A connectors, making this a great choice for a recovery drive.

  $15 at Amazon

Step 1: Creating a system image

The best way to move your Windows system to another drive without spending money is using the built-in Backup & Restore (Windows 7) feature. Yes, that is the correct name Microsoft uses for this feature, but it's available on Windows 11. The first thing you need to do is create the system image for your current disk.

1. Open the Start menu and search for Control Panel.
2. Choose Backup & Restore (Windows 7).
3. Plug in your external drive that will contain the Windows backup (not to be confused with the recovery drive).
4. Click Create system image on the sidebar.
5. Choose the correct drive to create the backup in. We recommend only having one external drive plugged in at this point to minimize confusion.
6. Click Next.
7. Select the drives you want to back up. By default, all the drives required for Windows to run will be backed up, but if you want more drives, you'll have to select them manually. This may affect your ability to restore the backup, though.
8. Click Next.
9. You'll be warned about data on your backup drive being deleted. Click OK and then Start backup.
10. Wait for the process to finish.

Step 2: Creating a recovery drive

Once you have the system image, you'll also need to create a recovery drive using the smaller USB flash drive. This drive provides a booting environment so you can restore the system image when you insert your new drive that doesn't have an operating system yet. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Plug in your USB flash drive. We recommend unplugging the external drive containing the system image to avoid confusion.
2. Open the Start menu and search for recovery drive. Choose the first result.
3. In the window that opens, click Next.
4. Choose which drive you want to use as a recovery drive (again, we recommend unplugging other drives to avoid confusion).
5. Confirm you're okay with deleting the content inside the flash drive and the process will begin.
6. Wait for the process to finish, then close the dialog.

Step 3: Switch the drives inside your PC

At this point, you'll be ready to move your Windows installation to the new drive. As such, you'll now have to install the new drive inside your PC, if you haven't already. You'll need to open up your PC or laptop, remove the existing SSD or drive, and install the new one.

This process will vary significantly depending on the kind of PC you have, but we have a guide on how to install an SSD on a desktop PC that should help. The general steps are:

1. Turn off your PC entirely.
2. Remove the side panel on your desktop (or the bottom cover on a laptop).
3. Locate the M.2 SSD slot.
4. Remove the screw holding the SSD in place and pull the SSD away from the slot.
5. Insert the new SSD in the same position, then secure it with the screw you removed in step 4.
6. Close the laptop or PC.

If your machine has multiple SSD slots, you may be able to install the new SSD without removing your existing one, too. In this case, we're assuming you're replacing your drive altogether.

Step 4: Restore the system image on the new SSD

Once you have the new SSD installed, all you need to do now is restore the system image using both the recovery drive and the system image drive. For this process, follow these steps:

1. Plug in both the recovery drive and the system image drive while your computer is off.
2. Turn the computer on and press F2, Delete, or other key to enter the boot menu or BIOS on your PC.

   Check out our guide on how to enter the BIOS to see common keys for accessing the BIOS on different computer brands.

3. Navigate to the boot options and ensure that your recovery drive is the first option your PC is set to boot from.

   You may need to change the boot order again after finishing the restore process. Some BIOS versions may have a boot menu that doesn't require you to go into the full BIOS to change the boot order. This method is easier and circumvents this step, but it's not always available.

4. Save your changes and exit to restart the computer.
5. Your PC will start in a recovery environment. Start by choosing your desired language and region.
6. Choose Troubleshoot.
7. Select Advanced options.
8. Click System Image Recovery (it may be in a different position depending on your Windows version).
9. If the drive you're restoring to is protected by BitLocker, you may need the recovery key. This will be linked to your Microsoft account, or you would need to have saved it elsewhere. This is unlikely, though, since you'll be using a new drive.
10. You'll see the latest system image available to recover from on your external drive. Click Next.
11. Enable the checkbox that says Format and repartition disks to make the new drive match your old one completely.
12. Click Next and then click Next again on the confirmation page.
13. You'll see a warning to confirm that you want to delete the data on your target drive. Click OK.
14. The process can take a while to finish depending on how much data is being restored.
15. Once it finishes, you'll see a warning letting you know you'll need to re-enable encryption for the restored drives. Click OK and then Restart now to restart your computer with the new drive.
16. At this point, remove the USB drives from your PC and, if needed, go back into the BIOS to make your SSD the primary boot option again (see step 3).
17. Restart your PC again and you'll be back in Windows, just like it was on your old drive.

What to do after restoring your Windows install

There shouldn't be any big additional steps to take once you're back in Windows, since everything should be where you left it. The only thing to do is re-enable encryption for your PC if you want the extra layer of security. You can do this in Windows 11 by going to Settings > Privacy & security > Device encryption.

One other thing worth looking into is your disk management, particularly if your new drive has more space than your old drive. When restoring the drive, Windows will use the exact same layout as the original drive, so any additional space will be unallocated. You'll need to go into Disk Management to extend your partitions so you can use that space, or create a new partition if extending isn't possible.

Other than that, you're all set. While some care is needed, the process isn't too hard to follow, so you should be up and running relatively quickly.