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Why should you clone a hard drive to another?
Cloning a hard drive allows you to make a full copy of it so that you can access to the original data when you face a hard drive glitch or damage; Or sometimes, you need to replace your old HDD with a new SSD and the data just can’t jump from the source drive to the new drive and in this case, cloning hard drive is a necessary step, and in this way, you don’t need to install the OS and software again on the new drive.
With some third-party drive clone software, hard drive clone is no longer cumbersome
Free download the best disk clone software Windows 7, 8, 10
When it comes to hard drive clone, there are plenty of choices on market and you must have no idea which one is the best? This time, I recommend the most impressive third-party drive clone software AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. With this freeware, you’re able to copy the entire hard drive to another one without any hurdle.
Meanwhile, it allows cloning from a larger drive to a smaller one and if the source disk contains an operating system, you can still boot into the OS from the destination disk.
What is the best disk clone software Windows 7, 8, 10. Free download and have a try!
How to clone a hard drive to another?
So much so far, next, let’s check how to clone data from one hard drive to another in the powerful free partition manager in the following contents.
Note:
- The Standard edition only supports cloning an OS hard drive in MBR to another hard drive in MBR; if you want to clone bootable hard drive from MBR to GPT, or GPT to MBR/GPT, please upgrade to the Professional edition.
- The hard drive clone will erase all data on the target drive. In this case, you’d better take a backup first.
Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard and wait until the info of all disks appear.
Step 2. Select the source disk you want to clone and click on “Disk Clone” under “Disk Operations” on the left side.
Step 3. Here, you’ll see 2 clone methods – “Clone Disk Quickly” and “Sector-by-sector Clone”. Here, I recommend the first one – “Clone Disk Quickly”.
Clone Disk Quickly: Clone only used space to another disk and allowed to adjust the size of partitions.
Sector-by-Sector Clone: Clone all sectors to another disk, whether used or not.
Note: If you’re going to clone a larger hard drive to a smaller one, then, you should select the first method. To ensure success, you might as well delete some unused apps first to make sure the used space is no bigger than the destination drive.
Step 4. Select the target drive where you want to clone your disk to. Tick the option “Optimize the performance of SSD” if the target drive is an SSD. Then, hit “Next”.
Step 5. Now, you’ll see 3 clone options – “Clone without resizing partitions”, “Fit partitions to entire disk”, and “Edit partitions on this disk”. Here, we choose the 3rd one. Adjust the size of the partitions and hit “Next” to proceed.
Step 6. After sent back to the main interface, hit “Apply” and then, hit “Proceed” to start the disk clone.
If it’s an OS disk that was cloned, then, you should boot your PC from the target disk. Enter BIOS and set the target disk as the first boot drive; Or just remove the original hard drive and leave the target drive there.
How to clone a partition to another drive?
In the content above, I introduced how to clone an entire hard drive to another in the easiest way. However, what if you only want to move the data in a partition to another drive? Read on, and you’ll find the answer
Note:
- There’s supposed to be unallocated space on the target drive to store the data from the source partition. If there’s not, please create one piece by deleting or shrinking partition.
- The unallocated space should be equal to or larger than the used space of the source drive if you choose the clone method of “Copy Partition Quickly”. For “Sector-by-Sector Copy”, the unallocated space should be equal to or bigger than the original disk.
- Remember to shut down apps and programs running on the partition you’re going to copy. Otherwise, the copy will go under PreOS Mode.
Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. Right-click on the source partition and select “Clone Partition”.
Step 2. Select “Clone Partition Quickly” that is the recommended option and hit “Next”.
Step 3. Select a piece of unallocated space as the destination. If the target disk is an SSD, remember to tick the option “Optimize the performance of SSD”. Hit “Next”.
Step 4. Adjust the size of the created partition as you like or just keep the default settings. Hit “Finish”.
Step 5. After returning to the main window, hit “Apply” > “Proceed” to start the clone.
Conclusion
Why clone a hard drive and what’s the best drive cloner software. In the article above, the way to clone a hard drive is given along with the way to clone a partition. They do different things but share similar steps. Hopefully, after walking through the entire tutorial, now, you can do it on your own.