Can I Replace My Internal HDD with an External HDD?
I wanna replace the hard drive in my laptop with a bigger hard external one. Will it work if I put in a 2TB hard drive? Can I replace my internal HDD with an external HDD? What can I do to ensure the external hard drive has the same data as the internal one?
Best Answered by
Jerry· Answered on Jan 21, 2026
Yes, you can replace your internal hard drive with an external one.
Depending on the drive type (boot vs. data drive) and operating system, only a limited number of internal HDDs can be replaced with external HDDs.
A PC's boot hard drive (drive C:) could not be an external drive before Windows 10. This is because Microsoft was too worried about system performance before the release of USB 3.0 to permit the primary Windows installation to be on an internal drive. (Windows installations could not be started from a USB device, although install disks could.)
If you want to replace an internal drive with an external one, you can do the following:
- Take off the external drive's cover, then carefully unplug the hard drive's SATA connector.
- Locate the hard drive by opening the laptop or desktop cover.
- Using the proper SATA cables, connect your hard drive after removing it from the external hard drive.
After successfully replacing the hard drive, you can use a disk cloning tool, like EaseUS Disk Copy, to help you clone the hard drive. This can ensure your external hard drive has the same content as your internal one.
Free Download
Windows 11/10/8/7
EaseUS Disk Copy is professional cloning software for Windows 7/8/10/11. If you want to replace the laptop hard drive and reinstall the operating system, it can help you a lot.
In addition, it can help you clone your system, disk, and partition and migrate your OS from HDD to HDD and SSD to SSD. It can also help you transfer your C drive to a new SSD.
Yes, you can replace your internal drive with an external one.
Download the smartest and easiest Disk Cloning Software
Use EaseUS Disk Copy to upgrade small HDD, replace old/failed hard drive, migrate OS, clone HDD to SSD without reinstalling data.
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Windows 11/10/8/7
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