Hard drive copy, also known as hard drive cloning, is the creation of a complete duplication of the source hard drive. If the original is the primary hard drive with the operating system on it, then you should also be able to boot Windows from the copied drive successfully. Learn this article carefully and you will master a best hard drive copy tool to complete a hard drive cloning.
Why need hard drive clone instead of backup?
A copy can be a clone, or it can point to a backup. But why clone hard drive instead of simply copying and pasting the data on it? This can be ascribed to two reasons.
- First, simply copying everything from one hard drive to another may leave your target drive in a chaotic and disorganized state, such as applications not being able to find program files.
- In addition to the files on the source drive, you may want to migrate your operating system to your new drive, making it the primary drive. Moving an operating system is complex and therefore requires cloning to work rather than simple copy and paste.
Scenario you need to copy a hard drive
➣ Upgrade your hard drive. You may need to replace the HDD with an SSD or clone the SSD to a larger SSD. Therefore, you can enjoy the benefits of SSD to get better performance, such as faster speed, lower power consumption, noiseless operation, etc.
➣ Replace a new computer. When you buy a new computer and want to copy the data from your old computer’s HDD or SSD to a new one. Avoid reinstalling Windows from scratch and prevent data loss due to hard drive failure, system crash, accidental deletion, laptop theft, etc.
➣ Backup as protection. It’s also a good idea to keep an exact copy of your hard drive as a backup in case it fails unexpectedly.
What is the best hard drive copy tool?
When it comes to hard drive copy tool, AOMEI Backupper Professional qualifies as the best free disk cloning software Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP. Some of the powerful features that you can benefit a lot from are listed below.
♦ It offers you three clone types: Disk Clone, Partition Clone, and System clone to meet different demands.
♦ It supports cloning various brands of data and system disks such as Western Digital, Seagate, Samsung, etc. regardless of its interface (eg: SATA, NVMe, PCIe), and various partition styles such as direct MBR to MBR/MBR to GPT or GPT to GPT/MBR.
♦ It allows you to copy hard drive to multiple disk types such as an external USB drive, SSD, HDD, etc.
Moving on, you can learn the graphic tutorial to copy a hard drive to another one in just a few clicks.
Stepwise guide to copy hard drive with AOMEI Backupper
Preparation you need to do before copying a hard drive:
1. Install the target hard drive. If you are using a laptop with only one slot, you can connect the target disk via a SATA to USB adapter.
2. Backup critical data. Remember that the target SSD will be overwritten during the cloning process. Therefore, if there is important data on it, make sure to backup the files beforehand.
3. Check partition style. You’d better make sure the partition style of the target disk is compatible with your boot mode (MBR for legacy BIOS and GPT for UEFI). Otherwise, the cloned hard drive may fail to boot up.
How to make a copy of your hard drive with AOMEI Backupper:
Now, click the button below to get the hard disk cloning software download and learn the following step-by-step guide to complete the hard disk cloning process.
Step 1. After you have this tool installed on your PC, open it. Click Clone from the left side panel and then click Disk Clone.
Tip: if you just need to clone Windows 10 to new hard drive, the System Clone feature is suitable for you.
Step 2. Select the current hard drive you want to copy as the source disk and click “Next”.
Step 3. Select the destination SSD you have connected to your PC and click “Next”.
Step 4. If your target hard drive is an SSD, it is recommended to tick “SSD Alignment” to improve the performance of the target SSD. Check and confirm your operating settings and click “Start Clone”.
After the hard drive copying process is successfully completed, you can restart your computer and enter BIOS to change the boot order or replace the current drive with the target one and boot from it.
Warming notes:
- Edit partitions: You can resize partitions or convert disk type of the destination disk based on your needs.
- If your target drive is small, do not check Sector by sector clone, otherwise the cloning process will fail.
- Some users may encounter problems after cloning a hard drive – the cloned SSD won’t boot up correctly. Don’t panic, you can learn how to make cloned SSD bootable easily here.
Your turn
Now you may get the idea of the best hard drive copy tool to clone your current hard drive to another one with secure boot. With AOMEI Backupper, you are supported to clone not only disk, but also system and partitions are available with various powerful features such as Edit Partitions, SSD Alignment, etc.
In addition to Clone feature, it integrates multiple excellent features such as Sync, which allows you to transfer files from external drive to PC, or vice versa. And there are plenty of powerful features waiting for you to explore. Now it’s your turn to decide if you want to choose this best hard drive copy tool as your data protection solution.
