- How To Format An External Ssd
- How To Format Ssd With Os On It Work
- How To Format Ssd With Os On It Windows 10
- How To Format Ssd From Windows 10
For Windows OS; NTFS is commonly used on the computer. When it comes to the best format for SSD in Windows, NTFS is highly recommended to use. Drive with a FAT file system can't store a single file having a size above 4GB. Further Readings & FAQs on Moving OS to SSD. Why Migrate Windows 10 to SSD. Here are the reasons why more and more users are installing or moving Windows OS on SSD: #1. More Advantages of Using SSD as System Disk. Faster boot speed. SSD usually takes about 9 - 20 seconds to start the system. Faster program launch speed on SSD. It's super easy to format a drive in Windows 10. Whether it's a SSD or Hard Drive it's just a few simple clicks now and I'll show you how to do it as quickly.
Summary :
Is your laptop hard drive too small to store a large amount of data? Or is the hard disk too old so that Windows runs at a slow speed? The best way is to replace laptop hard drive. This post shows you how to upgrade laptop to SSD so that you can easily replace HDD with SSD for good performance.
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Simple Disk Upgrade Makes Your PC Run Like New
Do you have a laptop with insufficient disk space? Or the computer can't meet your requirement for PC performance? To put it simply, it is most likely that many kinds of files are saved on your hard drive, which can take up much disk space.
Moreover, if the hard drive has been used for many years, your laptop can run slowly. Under these circumstances, the best solution is to replace laptop hard drive.
Which hard drive do you want to use to replace the old or small disk? For a better computer performance, SSD should be the first option due to its outstanding merits, for example, SSD has faster read-write speed than classic hard disks.
If you take SSD as your system disk, booting into Windows will take you seconds. Besides, for programs, they will take no time to load. Moreover, laptop hard drive replacement cost is not too expensive.
When you find Windows doesn't run as it is normal, if you don't want to reinstall the operating system or pay for a brand-new laptop, it is well worth the investment.
How do you replace a hard drive with SSD in Windows 10/8/7? In this article, we will walk you through the details.
How to Replace Laptop Hard Drive with SSD via Disk Cloning
Actually, it is pretty simple to replace HDD with SSD, without reinstalling Windows. Basically, this replacement process refers to cloning the entire content on your existing laptop hard drive to an SSD, then taking out the original hard drive and putting the SSD in its place. Let's see some details.
Getting Ready
1. Purchase an appropriate SSD
It should be compatible with your laptop since some old models may use a parallel ATA connector, not SATA. Besides, please keep in mind another important thing: confirm the actual size of the current hard disk and make sure the SSD you get has a higher capacity to hold all data.
This post will walk you through how to clone hard drive to smaller SSD with ease in Windows 10/8/7. Get the MiniTool Programs for a try now.
2. Prepare cloning software
Many of them can work well. Here, MiniTool programs – MiniTool ShadowMaker and MiniTool Partition Wizard can bring you much convenience in the laptop hard drive replacement.
3. Need a USB-SATA adapter
How to connect SSD to laptop externally? Please connect your SSD via a USB-SATA adapter to your laptop for hard drive disk cloning. This can work better than connecting via USB cable.
4. Initialize SSD
If the SSD is brand-new, please initialize it to MBR or GPT in Windows Disk Management. Otherwise, it cannot be used.
Upgrade Laptop Hard Drive to SSD via MiniTool ShadowMaker
MiniTool ShadowMaker, a third-party backup tool, has won a great reputation from many computer users due to its powerful functions.
At first glance, you know it is a piece of professional free backup software for Windows 10/8/7, which allows you to back up your files, system, partition or disk.
Then, perhaps you will ask us: can this backup software make you do disk cloning? In fact, in addition to backup & restore functions, it also enables you to clone a disk for replacing hard drive in a laptop or desktop.
Now, get it by hitting the following download button to clone laptop HDD to SSD for better performance.
How to upgrade laptop to SSD without reinstalling Windows? Follow these steps below to start disk cloning.
Step 1: Decide a Mode
- Open this PC cloning software by double-clicking on it.
- Continue to use the trial edition.
- Choose a computer to continue by clicking the Connect button.
Step 2: Choose a Feature to Clone Laptop HDD to SSD
- Go to the Tools page.
- Click Clone Disk to continue. This feature is quite easy to finish disk cloning, including cloning the system disk and data disk.
Step 3: Choose Disks for Cloning in the Corresponding Section
- Go to Source to choose a source disk.
- Enter the Destination section to select a target disk.
1. As to source disk, as far as we are concerned, system disk is selected commonly. By disk cloning, you can upgrade laptop hard drive without reinstalling Windows when Windows runs slowly.
2. For the target disk, if your SSD has been connected to your laptop and it is recognized by Windows, just choose it to start clone laptop HDD to SSD.
• If you use a brand-new SSD as the destination disk, please click Yes to continue.
• If your SSD contains something important, you had better use MiniTool ShadowMaker to make a backup.
Step 4: Perform Disk Cloning Process
- From the figure below, you see some information about the laptop hard drive cloning: source disk, destination disk, elapsed time and remaining time. Be patient for this process, please.
- When the progress bar reaches 100%, you will get one message, reporting you that you should disconnect your original hard drive or the target hard drive; otherwise, one disk may be marked as offline by Windows operating system.
Until now, so much information about how to upgrade laptop hard drive without reinstalling Windows has been told to you. The steps are very simple as long as you follow the above instructions. After completing the disk cloning, just replace laptop HDD with SSD. Then, restart your laptop, Windows will run very fast.
To sum up, MiniTool ShadowMaker is a good assistant to replace laptop hard drive with SSD without reinstalling operating system. Hope you can also own such a piece of hard drive cloning software in Windows 10/8/7. Get this tool right now or share it with your friends.
Clone Laptop Hard Drive with MiniTool Partition Wizard
MiniTool Partition Wizard, another piece of dedicated PC cloning software, is also released by MiniTool Solution Ltd. Due to its powerful features, it is gaining popularity and now over 41,000,000 users download this partition magic from CNET.
In order to complete disk cloning or OS migration to replace laptop hard drive, MiniTool Partition Wizard provides you with two features which are both useful for disk cloning:
Migrate OS to SSD/HD
This feature can only work on the system disk. By means of it, you can copy all partitions on the system disk to another disk or only clone the system required partitions.
Copy Disk
It enables you to clone all the content of the entire hard disk including system disk or data disk to another hard drive.
Want to use this hard drive cloning software to upgrade laptop hard drive without reinstalling Windows? Get MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition on your laptop with Windows 10, Windows 8 or Windows 7 in an instant.
How to clone laptop HDD to SSD for hard drive replacement? Take Migrate OS to SSD/HD as an example. The details are here.
Step 1: Choose a Feature to Upgrade Laptop to SSD
- Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition in Windows 10/8/7.
- Click Migrate OS to SSD/HDWizard from the Wizard menu.
Step 2: Choose a Cloning Option
- If you want to replace your system disk with another hard disk, A is available.
- If you want to only move the operating system to another disk, B is proper.
- Here, you intend to replace laptop hard drive with SSD, so here A is suitable.
Step 3: Choose a Target Disk
- Decide the destination disk you want to use to replace your system disk. Here please choose the SSD you have connected to your laptop.
- During migration, the content of the destination disk will be deleted. Thus, you had better prepare an empty SSD. But, if your SSD holds many important files, ensure they are backed up before.
Step 4: Check One Copy Option
- From the following figure, choose a copy option based on your needs.
- For an SSD or advanced format disk, please align all partitions to 1MB, which can improve the computer performance.
- If you want to clone OS disk with MBR to GPT disk, the Free Edition of MiniTool Partition Wizard is not supported. Get the Professional Edition or an advanced edition when there is a need.
Step 5: Then a window pops up to tell you what you need to do to ensure your laptop can be booted from this destination disk.
Step 6: Execute all the operations you have made by hitting the Apply button at last.
This article tells how to easily migrate Windows 10 to SSD/new hard drive or clone Windows 10 to SSD without reinstalling the operating system.
After finishing the disk cloning, you can replace laptop hard drive with SSD. By this way, your operating system can run from the SSD at a fast speed. Enjoy this change now.
Replace Your Current Disk with the SSD
How do you remove the hard drive from a laptop? How to replace a hard drive in a laptop with SSD? Let's see the details.
- Turn off your laptop, disconnect both the power cable and any other connected cables, and remove the back panel of your laptop to get access to your hard drive.
- Look for the screws which are used to secure your hard drive to the laptop and then unscrew those screws. Note that the hard drive may be on the edge of the laptop or it is placed under the battery.
- Pull this hard disk out by lifting the old disk up about 45 or 30 degrees.
- Reverse the process about how you remove the HDD: put the SSD in the original place at an angle, ensure it is fully connected to the interface, secure it with screws and screw the back panel.
Be sure that all the screws are being used. In our experience, you have done something wrong if a screw or two left over.
Like that, all the things you need to do for laptop hard drive replacement are shown here. Just do as the above steps say to replace laptop HDD with SSD.
- From the following figure, choose a copy option based on your needs.
- For an SSD or advanced format disk, please align all partitions to 1MB, which can improve the computer performance.
- If you want to clone OS disk with MBR to GPT disk, the Free Edition of MiniTool Partition Wizard is not supported. Get the Professional Edition or an advanced edition when there is a need.
Step 5: Then a window pops up to tell you what you need to do to ensure your laptop can be booted from this destination disk.
Step 6: Execute all the operations you have made by hitting the Apply button at last.
This article tells how to easily migrate Windows 10 to SSD/new hard drive or clone Windows 10 to SSD without reinstalling the operating system.
After finishing the disk cloning, you can replace laptop hard drive with SSD. By this way, your operating system can run from the SSD at a fast speed. Enjoy this change now.
Replace Your Current Disk with the SSD
How do you remove the hard drive from a laptop? How to replace a hard drive in a laptop with SSD? Let's see the details.
- Turn off your laptop, disconnect both the power cable and any other connected cables, and remove the back panel of your laptop to get access to your hard drive.
- Look for the screws which are used to secure your hard drive to the laptop and then unscrew those screws. Note that the hard drive may be on the edge of the laptop or it is placed under the battery.
- Pull this hard disk out by lifting the old disk up about 45 or 30 degrees.
- Reverse the process about how you remove the HDD: put the SSD in the original place at an angle, ensure it is fully connected to the interface, secure it with screws and screw the back panel.
Be sure that all the screws are being used. In our experience, you have done something wrong if a screw or two left over.
Like that, all the things you need to do for laptop hard drive replacement are shown here. Just do as the above steps say to replace laptop HDD with SSD.
Bottom Line
This post shows you why replace laptop hard drive with SSD, how to clone a laptop hard drive for disk replacement and how to install SSD in a laptop without reinstalling Windows. With the help of MiniTool software, replacing a hard drive can be done well.
When using our programs, please tell us your questions if you have. Besides, as for the suggestions, please also share with us. You can leave a comment in the following area or send your opinions to [email protected]. Thanks.
Replacing a Hard Drive Without Reinstalling Windows FAQ
- Run MiniTool Partition Wizard.
- Click Migrate OS to SSD/HD Wizard.
- Choose option B to only move Windows 10 to a new hard drive.
- Select a target disk.
- Choose a copy option.
- Read the note and click Apply at last.
- Purchase a new hard drive, for example, SSD.
- Connect it to your PC and run MiniTool ShadowMaker or MiniTool Partition Wizard to clone the old disk to the new disk.
- Remove the existing hard drive and put the new hard drive back to the original place.
- Boot the PC from the new hard drive.
- To get more details on the disk upgrade, refer to this post - How to Upgrade to Larger Hard Drive Without Data Loss.
macOS Big Sur is still in pulic beta and not stable according to user feedback. We heard dozens of popular apps like Dropbox and Parallels Desktops not working properly in Big Sur. So it is not the perfect time to upgrade to Big Sur. Instead, you can test it out by installing the OS on an external hard drive or SSD.
Before moving ahead, you must be familiar with the task that you need to perform in the operation. In a glimpse, you will need an external hard drive and format it Disk Utility. Next, you need to download the installer (.dmg file) and then create a bootable USB drive and at last, you will learn the ways to install macOS Big Sur on an external hard drive. Now, you will have to go through each section one by one, and here, you will get the detailed instructions of each method.
Portable Hard Drive or SSD?
The first question comes to the selection of portable external drive, which is the final storage media to keep OS files. It could be a traditional Hard Disk Drive (HDD) or Solid State Drive (SSD). In simple terms, hard drive should be the your choice only if you had tight budget or looked for large volume disk (over 1TB). For rest of the cases, SSD is always the best chocie because of faster writing and reading speed. No one want to run macOS Big Sur on external drive but with weak performance, right?
Please note! No matter what kind of external drive you decided to buy, make sure the ports are compatible with your Mac. On modern Macs, it is usually shipped with USB 3.0 port and Thunderbolt 2/3.
Part 1: Format External Hard Drive or SSD
The default file system on portable hard drive or SSD is exFAT or FAT, which is used for Windows or Linux OS. macOS uses totally different file system so you have to format the external drive first in order to install Big Sur on it. Formatting the external drive (SSD) will wipe all the data associated to it. So, if you had important files, then make sure to take a backup first.
Step 1: Connect the external drive to Mac using the cable.
Step 2: Open Disk Utility and click on the view icon to select Show All Devices.
Step 3: Now, select your connected external drive and further click on the Erase button.
Step 4: You will have to fill the available boxes with the Big Sur or another name in the Name section. Select APFS from the drop-down menu in the format box and finally, select GUID Partition Map for the Scheme section.
Step 5: After completing the above task, click on the Erase button. Now wait for a few seconds as the format process is started and once it is completed, click on the Done button.
Your first task is done as you have formatted the drive to Mac supported format and now you need to download the macOS DMG file for creating macOS USB bootable drive.
Part 2: Download macOS Big Sur DMG File
DMG is the default file type on Mac for compressing files and macOS Big Sur installation file ends with .dmg. If you already got this file, then move to Part 3. If not, please download .dmg file of macOS Big Sur from here (Link 1 & Link 2). The installation file is 10GB so it could take some time to complete the download process. This is largely dependent on how fast your Internet connection is.
Your second task is done and you have successfully download the dmg file of macOS Big Sur. Now, you need software to burn macOS Big Sur dmg file to external drive. This part can be done with the help of UUByte DMG Editor.
Part 3: Create Bootable macOS Big Sur Installer for External Drive
To make a macOS Big Sur bootable drive, you have to burn .dmg file to it. However, this must be done with the right software. A single copy-paste won't work in this way. In here, we will use DMG Editor as example, which can directly write .dmg file to external drive like hard drive, SSD and USB stick. Moreover, DMG Editor allows the users to open and extract the DMG files on both Windows and Mac operating systems.
Step 1: Run UUByte DMG Editor and Connect External Drive
Download and Install UUByte DMG Editor on your Mac and make sure to perform the task from its official site. Plug your external drive to Mac and launch UUByte DMG Editor on your Mac. On the main interface, you will get Burn and Extract options. Click the Burn section, and then click on the Next button.
Step 2: Import .dmg File
Now, import the downloaded file of macOS Big Sur into DMG Editor by clicking on the Browse button. Also ensure that the external drive is detected by this application, if not, then reconnect the drive to Mac.
Step 3: Burn macOS Big Sur .dmg to External Drive
After uploading the OS files, you need to click on the Burn button and within a short time, the burning process will be completed. Once it is done, you will get a successful message on your Mac screen.
How To Format An External Ssd
The burning process is completed and a bootable drive is ready to use. Now, you need to boot this drive to install macOS Big Sur. The comprehensive steps are provided below.
Part 4: Install macOS Big Sur on an External Hard Drive or SSD
Step 1: Connect the external drive to your Mac.
Step 2: Shut down your Mac and then turn it on. Make sure to press the Option key at booting. Now, select the bootable external drive and then press the Return key.
Step 3: Your Mac will restart few times, and then it will direct you to Recovery Mode; click on the Utilities, and further click on Reinstall macOS.
Step 4: Now, provide the installation path, i.e. your external hard drive, and then click on the Install button. Wait for a while as the installation process will take some time.
Step 5: Once the installation of macOS Big Sur on an external drive is completed, you will be directed to the setup page, and here you need to click on the Continue button.
Step 6: Next, you need to Sign-in with your Apple credentials to sync the files on the iCloud. Now, click on the Get Started button and configure the Big Sur as per your convenience.
Once the setup is completed, you can always boot into macOS Big Sur by pressing Option key at booting stage. This is much more safe and convenient to install macOS on internal drive of your Mac.
Part 5: Troubleshooting Guide
How To Format Ssd With Os On It Work
We have tested the whole process throughly on an MacBook Pro and iMac. However, you might experience some error before or after installation process. We have gathered a few common issues according to user feedback and provide useful suggestions to fix it. Please read more and check it out!
Note: macOS Big Sur can be only installed on supported Macs according to Apple Official document. You have to make addition adjustment if you want to install it on unsupported Mac. And you will receive error message more frequently than supported Mac. Please keep this in mind.
Q: External drive is not bootable
A: All Macs with T2 chip will have this issue if Startup Security Utility is enabled on your Mac. This mostly happens on MacBook Pro with Touchbar. Please follow this guide to turn on the options to allow Mac booting from external media.
Q: The Operation couldn't be completed. (BIErrorDomain error 8)
A: Make sure your Mac is connected to Internet. If the error still exists, erase the external drive to HFS+ instead of APFS as we suggested in Part 1. After that, download the latest Big Sur beta and create the bootable installer once more time.
Q: A software update is required to use this startup disk.
A: This error means you just try to install an out-dated version of Big Sur. Please download the latest version and follow the instructions to make a bootable installer.
Q: Installation completed successfully but frozen. How to fresh install yosemite.
A: Wipe clean the external drive in Disk Utility and create a fresh bootable installer. And repeat the above process. If this does not work and you really want to use macOS Big Sur, please backup your internal drive and install Big Sur on it with a new partition (if the volume is big enough).
How To Format Ssd With Os On It Windows 10
Summary
How To Format Ssd From Windows 10
So, these were all about the way to install macOS Big Sur on an eternal drive. The method is pretty simple and all you need a bootable USB drive and an external hard drive to accomplish the task. You can simply create a bootable USB drive using DMG Editor because it takes less time and gives the desired output.