How to Migrate Windows Server OS to a New Drive (HDD/SSD) [2022 Full Guide]

• Duration: 30 minutes - 1 hour.
• Applies to: Migrate Windows Server 2022/2019/2016/2013/2008/2002 to a new HDD/SSD.

Can You Perform a Server OS Migration on the Same Server? Are you looking for a reliable Windows Server migration tool to transfer and upgrade Windows Server to a new disk? Do you want to upgrade the Windows Server OS disk?

You'll get a complete guide to migrate Windows Server OS to a new disk with success on this page.

# 1. Prepare New Disk for Windows Server OS Migration

In the process of preparing a new disk for Windows Server migration, you may encounter two issues:

• 1. Which type of disk to select?
• 2. How to make the new disk ready?

Let's first figure out what your goal of Windows Server OS migration is? 

• Upgrade Windows Server to a bigger disk, hard disk drives with big storage capacity is what you need.
• To optimize Windows Server running speed, SSDs with sufficient storage capacity should work.

A hard drive with 32GB - 4 TB or SSD with 2-4TB or even bigger storage size is recommended for Windows Server installation.

When you get the disk back, you've now come to the next step: getting the new disk ready for Windows Server migration. Here are the steps:

Step 1. Add new disk to Windows Server computer via a SATA cable and a power cable.

Step 2. Once connected the new disk to your computer, open Disk Management in Windows Server.

Step 3. Right-click the old system drive and select "Properties", confirm its disk partition style is MBR or GPT. 

Step 4. Locate and right-click the new disk, which will display as "Unknown or Not Initialized", and select "Initialize Disk". 

Step 5. Select the disk style for the new disk, make sure it's the same as the old system disk - MBR or GPT, and click "OK" to confirm.

Once done, your new disk is ready for Windows Server migration, and you can move to the next guide for further operation.

#2. Pick and Download Windows Server Migration Tool for Help

Windows Server Manager has Windows Server Migration Tools that you can turn to for help. But this tool only works efficiently in transferring Windows Server system to another computer with a complex operation procedure. And it doesn't work quite well in updating Windows Server OS within one computer.

To do an in-place upgrade of the Windows Server system disk, you'll need to turn to a professional system migration tool or software for help.

Qiling Partition Master Enterprise, with its reliable Migrate OS feature, allows any Windows Server and Windows users to efficiently migrate the operating system to a new hard drive or SSD with success. It requires no technical background to migrate Windows Server to a new HDD/SSD successfully.

Aside from OS migration, this tool also helps you to:

• Manage hard drive space in Windows Server
• Extend System C drive or fix low disk space error in C drive
• Merge or split hard drive partitions
• Create, format, convert, delete, and even wipe disk partitions
• Recover partitions, 4K align SSD, check and repair disk error, etc.

After installing the Windows Server migration tool on your computer, you can refer to the next guide for system migration between old and new disks.

#3. Migrate Windows Server OS to a New Hard Drive or SSD

Here are the steps that you can follow to migrate your Windows Server system to the newly added hard drive or SSD:

Note:The operation of migrating OS to SSD or HDD will delete and remove existing partitions and data on your target disk when there is not enough unallocated space on the target disk. If you saved important data there, back up them to an external hard drive in advance.

Step 1. Select "Migrate OS" from the Tools and utilities page.

Step 2. The system partition will be selected by Automatically and click "Next".

Step 3. Select the SSD or HDD as the destination disk and click "Next".

Step 4. Preview the layout of your target disk. You can also click the disk layout options to customize the layout of your target disk as you want. Then click "Proceed" to start migrating your OS to a new disk

Step 5. Click "OK" after check warning message. The data and partitions on the target disk will be deleted. Make sure that you've backed up important data in advance. If not, do it now.

When the system migration procedure completes, it's essential that you enter the Windows Server BIOS settings to configure the system drive boot order. The steps are contained in the next guide.

#4. Set The New Disk as System Boot Drive

Step 1. Reboot Windows Server computer and press the F2/F8 or Del key to enter the BIOS settings.

Step 2. Go to the Boot Menu, find the Boot Order settings section, and click it.

Step 3. Select the priority boot drive as the newly added drive and save the changes.

Step 4. Exit BIOS and restart the computer.

Wait for the computer to boot up and enter your Windows Server systems. When you see the login image, enter your account and password, you can then start using your Server computer on the new disk. 

You Can Migrate Windows Server Computer to A New Hard Drive or SSD Now

We simplify the Windows Server OS migration procedure into 4 separate guides on this page. 

Always remember, to migrate and configure Windows OS migration to a new disk, you should first prepare the disk, get a reliable OS migration tool like Qiling Partition Master for help.

Next, apply Qiling Partition Master to migrate OS and configure the new disk as the boot drive. 

As long as you follow the full guide one by one, you can successfully migrate the Windows Server systems to a new disk and enjoy optimized Server computer performance immediately.

Related Articles

• How to Safely Resize Partitions in Windows 11 Without Losing Data
• How to Clone 2TB HDD to 1TB SSD in Windows 11/10/8/7? Your Guide Is Here
• 2022 Best Bootable USB Hard Disk Format Tool Free Download
• How to Create Volume by Diskpart? [Full Guide]