Move WSL2 Distro To Other Driver

So, I get ask a lot on how to move a WSL2 distro to other drive. And this is the easiest I found.

First let us check what distros are we going to move to other drive by running this command:

wsl -l -v

Next, we need to make sure distributions are not running by running.

wsl --shutdown

Its optional but having a backup is important. You can create a directory where you want to put the backup on your system. In my case I will create a wsl folder iny my D drive. And then run wsl export to export the distribution.

mkdir D:/backup
wsl --export Ubuntu-20.04 D:\backup\ubuntu.tar

Wait till the WSL export is over (it may take much time). A TAR archive with your WSL ext4 file system will appear in the target directory.

Then you may remove the WSL files on the source disk:

wsl --unregister Ubuntu-20.04

Set up a new folder on a different drive for your Linux files and use a command to bring those files into the folder. In my case I will create WSL folder in my D drive.

mkdir D:\WSL

Then Let us run the import to import it in our WLS directory.

wsl --import Ubuntu-20.04 D:\WSL\ D:\backup\ubuntu.tar

There you go. You have now moved your distro to your other drive.

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