Clone Hard Drive to Larger Drive Without Reinstalling Windows and Programs

Before you dive into the detailed information on this topic, let's see what you need to prepare for how to clone a hard drive with bad sectors.

🧰Tools You Will Use	EaseUS Disk Copy
📃Preparations	A SATA-to-USB cable to connect both drives or an external hard drive enclosure Format the drive if it is a new one/back up the drive if it is an old one Download Disk Cloning Software - EaseUS Disk Copy

Download this awesome disk cloning software here

What You Need to Clone Hard Drive to Larger Drive

Does your hard disk often run out of space which makes you unable to upgrade the software, applications, or system or store more data? If you are suffering from such kinds of things and decide to purchase a new hard disk, it's definitely a huge project and time-consuming job to reinstall everything, especially the operating system and all the applications on the new hard disk.

Have you ever been stuck on a question, like "Is there a way to upgrade to a larger disk without reinstalling Windows or programs?"

The answer is in the affirmative. EaseUS Disk Copy can reduce your worry about reinstalling everything on your new hard drive. Besides, it can help you install Windows after replacing a hard drive on your computer.

Here are all the essential things you should prepare before taking action to upgrade to a larger hard drive or clone a hard drive:

#1. A way to connect both hard drives to your computer

If you're using a desktop computer, you can always try to install the second drive alongside your old hard drive to clone it. It's impossible for laptops to install two hard drives together, so you should prepare something like a SATA-to-USB cable to connect the larger hard drive (HDD or SSD) to your laptop via USB. By the way, you can also install your new drive in an external hard drive enclosure to replace the USB cable.

#2. A copy of EaseUS Disk Copy - your best disk cloning choice

Customers treat EaseUS Disk Copy as the model of the disk cloning market. With the multiple built-in features, you can migrate OS from HDD to SSD without losing data, upgrade hard disk, clone HDD to SSD, and even replace a failing hard drive without booting into Windows.

In addition, you can use it to clone a hard drive with bad sectors due to its sector-by-sector cloning technology. It can also help you replace a computer's hard disk without losing data and reinstalling Windows.

With the help of EaseUS Disk Copy, it's all too easy to clone an old hard drive to a larger one.

How to Clone Hard Drive to Larger Drive

EaseUS Disk Copy is very easy and quite safe to use. Any time when you need to upgrade a hard drive from old to new, from small to large, or from a mechanical HDD to a stable SSD, and transfer your C drive to a new SSD, feel free to apply EaseUS Disk Copy.

Follow the steps to clone your hard drive to a larger one without reinstalling Windows and programs:

Step 1: Choose "Disk mode" and select the smaller hard drive as the source disk.

Step 2: Choose the bigger hard drive to save the data and then click "Next".

Step 3: Edit the disk layout and then click "Proceed" to continue.

• "Autofit the disk" resize the layout on destination disk according to the size of it to make the disk as the best status.
• "Copy as the source" doesn't change anything on destination disk and the layout is same as source disk.
• "Edit disk layout" allows you to manually resize/move partition layout on this destination disk.

Step 4: A warning message tells you that the data on the destination disk will be overwritten. Click "OK" to continue if you do not have important data on the destination disk.

Step 5: Wait for the process to complete.

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For a direct guide, watch and follow this video, you'll successfully clone your hard drive to a bigger HDD or SSD:

FAQs on Upgrade Disk to a Bigger One

1. Can I clone a larger hard drive to smaller SSD?

Make sure that the used space on your hard drive is less than that of the total capacity of the SSD. Right-click on your hard drive in Windows Explorer, and choose Properties. There you will check how much space has been used. If the used space is within the SSD capacity, download EaseUS Disk Copy to clone the larger hard drive to smaller SSD. 

2. How do I install a larger hard drive?

After cloning a smaller HDD to a larger hard drive, you can now safely remove the old drive from your computer. Next, replace the old hard drive with the larger hard drive.

3. How to clone a laptop hard drive?

To clone a laptop hard drive to a new one, you need to use a SATA-to-USB cable or an external hard drive enclosure to connect the new drive to your laptop. Next, follow the above guide to use Disk Copy to clone a laptop hard drive.