Some people ask, "Will I lose my data if I replace my laptop's hard drive?" The answer is Yes. All data in your laptop, including the Windows operating system, programs, files, etc., is stored on its internal hard drive. If you take out the hard drive and put in another one, all data will remain on the removed hard drive. It will not automatically or magically transfer to the new hard drive.
So, is there any way to replace a laptop's hard drive without losing data? The answer is Yes. You need an efficient data transfer strategy, allowing you to transfer all data from the old hard drive to the new one. Now, this page will show you how to replace a laptop's hard drive without losing data.
Why replace a laptop's hard drive?
- Your laptop comes with a small-capacity hard drive, and the space available is now getting less and less, so you want to replace the hard drive with a larger one.
- Your laptop is equipped with an old-fashioned mechanical HDD and runs slowly, so you want to replace the HDD with a new SSD to improve your laptop's performance.
- Your laptop's hard drive is faulty. (In this case, if the hard drive is unable to boot, see How to Backup Data without Booting into Windows 10.)
How to replace a laptop hard drive without losing data
- Step 1: Connect the new hard drive to the laptop externally.
- Step 2: Transfer data from the old hard drive to the new one.
- Step 3: Replace your hard drive with the new one.
Step 1: Connect the new hard drive to the laptop externally.
1. Place the new hard drive in an external enclosure or connect it to a SATA-to-USB adapter, and then plug the enclosure or adapter into a USB port on your laptop.
2. Go to This PC and see if the connected hard drive displays as a new volume. If yes, go straight to the next step. If it doesn't show up, continue to do the following.
3. Open Disk Management. In general, a Initialize Disk dialog box will automatically open, and you only need to select the Disk 1 and click OK to initialize the new hard drive.
4. Right click on the unallocated space behind the new hard drive and select New Simple Volume. Then follow the on-screen wizard to create a partition and assign a drive letter for the new hard drive. After you're finished, you should see the new hard drive displayed as a new drive letter in This PC.
Step 2: Transfer data from the old hard drive to the new one.
To replace a laptop's hard drive without losing any data, the most critical step is to copy/transfer all your important data to the new hard drive. Unless you already have an operating system on your new hard drive, or you plan to perform a clean Windows installation, you have to also transfer the Windows operating system from the old hard drive to the new hard drive, and most importantly, keep the new hard drive bootable. Manual copy-paste is not workable. The best way is to use disk cloning technology. Follow these procedures.
1. Download and install the disk cloning software iSumsoft Cloner on your laptop. After installation, start the software.
2. Select the Disk Clone option on the main interface.
3. Select Disk 0 (the laptop's internal hard drive) as the source disk, and then select Disk 1 (the hard drive connected to the laptop externally via USB) as the destination disk.
4. Click on Start in the lower right corner of the interface to start cloning the laptop's internal hard drive to the connected external hard drive. Then just wait for the cloning process to complete. This takes about 20 minutes, depending on the total capacity of the internal hard drive (source disk).
クローン作成が完了したら、完了です。 Windows オペレーティング システム、すべてのパーティション、プログラム、データを含むラップトップの内蔵ハード ドライブ上のすべてのデータが、新しいハード ドライブに正常にコピーされました。
ステップ 3: ハードドライブを新しいものと交換します。
すべてのデータを新しいハードドライブにコピーしたので、データの損失を心配することなく、安全にハードドライブを交換できます。古いハードドライブを取り外して新しいハードドライブを取り付けるには、ラップトップのマニュアルまたは関連するビデオチュートリアルを参照することをお勧めします。一般に、次の手順が必要です。
1.ラップトップの電源を切り、電源ケーブルと、USB ポート経由で接続された新しいハードドライブを含むその他の接続ケーブルの両方を取り外します。
2.ラップトップを裏返し、バッテリーを取り外します。
3.バックパネルのネジを外して、実際のハードドライブに物理的にアクセスします。一部のラップトップでは、フロント パネルをこじ開けてキーボードを取り外し、ベースとフロント パネルを分離する必要があります。メーカーによって異なります
4.ハードドライブキャディまたはブラケットを取り出し、既存のハードドライブのネジを外して取り外します。新しいハードドライブをキャディまたはブラケットに置き、ネジで固定します。その後、取り外したときと同じ方法で、新しいハードドライブを備えたキャディ/ブラケットをラップトップに戻します。
5.バックパネルをかぶせてネジで固定します。
6.バッテリーをノートパソコンに戻してから、ノートパソコンの電源を入れます
それだけです!ラップトップは新しいハードドライブから自動的に起動します。 Windows オペレーティング システムとすべてのプログラムは、取り外したハード ドライブと同様に、新しいハード ドライブでも問題なく正常に実行されます。ファイルが 1 つも失われることなく、すべてのデータがそのまま残ります。これが、データを失わずにラップトップのハードドライブを交換する方法です。
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