I recently built a computer, and I put a 3TB hard drive in it as my main drive. I installed Windows 8.1 on it, and then found out that Windows can only use 2TB's, so I have 1Tb of storage that I cant even use. I have another hard drive (320gb) that I want to transfer Windows to, so I can use my full 3TB. I'm looking for a program that will safely copy all my data from one hard drive, to another. (Would I be able to just copy/paste the contents from my C: drive to my other hdd? Or would that cause problems?)

What I need is:

  • Able to copy/move Windows 8.1 and all my programs/files to another hard drive
  • 100% reliable (I dont want any corrupted or lost files)
  • Will be able to boot from the new drive after, and have it exactly like it was
  • Free
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  • Thats probably not right. If you have UEFI you should be able to boot with and use the whole drive. – Journeyman Geek Jul 28 '14 at 7:06
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    The 2TB limitation is due to the MBR partition scheme. If you partition the drive using GPT, you can use the full size. However, as @JourneymanGeek suggested, Windows can only be installed on a GPT disk if and only if it's installed in UEFI mode. (Similarly for MBR and BIOS.) As you built your computer "recently", the motherboard should definitely support UEFI. – ntoskrnl Jul 28 '14 at 16:43

You can use EaseUS Todo Backup:

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Non gratis solutions: Acronis True Image and Paragon Hard Disk Manager.

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Here is another alternative cloning software which is free and can do things you asked: CloneZilla.

You can make a bootable CD or USB Flash drive, boot into it and clone one drive to another one. All your original files will be transferred over. Then disconnect your old drive and boot with your new one.

You will need to use "device to device" cloning option in your case.

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