Moving WSL to a different drive

Published: 2026-04-20

My main NVMe was filling up, so I moved my WSL install off to my D drive which had plenty of space. Here’s how I did it without losing a thing.

Prerequisites

Run PowerShell as Administrator. Make sure your target drive has enough room for the .tar backup — you’ll need that temporarily.

Step 1: Find your distro name

wsl --list --verbose

Grab the name from the NAME column (e.g. Ubuntu, Ubuntu-22.04). You’ll use it for the rest of this.

Step 2: Shut it down

wsl --shutdown

No WSL processes running in the background. That’s important.

Step 3: Export

wsl --export Ubuntu D:wsl_backup.tar

This packages the entire Linux filesystem into a single tar file. Takes a few minutes depending on how big your install is.

Step 4: Unregister the old one

Wait for Step 3 to finish. Once that .tar is sitting safely on your D drive, unregister the original install. This is the part that reclaims your NVMe space:

wsl --unregister Ubuntu

Step 5: Import to the new drive

Create a folder for it and import the backup:

wsl --import Ubuntu D:WSLUbuntu D:wsl_backup.tar

WSL will extract and create a new .vhdx right there.

Step 6: Set your default user

New imports log in as root by default. Fix that by editing the WSL config:

wsl -d Ubuntu -u root

Once you’re at the Linux prompt:

echo -e "[user]
default=stavros" >> /etc/wsl.conf

Exit back to PowerShell with exit.

Step 7: Final restart and cleanup

wsl --shutdown

Open WSL normally — it should log in as your user now. Everything should be intact. Once you’re sure, delete the backup tar:

Remove-Item D:wsl_backup.tar

There! Done.