Clone a Hard Drive
Edited by Michael J., Lynn, Eng
Whether you want to back up your computer file system or migrate your entire hard drive data into a storage unit with superior storage capacity, hard drive cloning could be one of your immediate options. This article will guide you on how to perform a hard drive cloning process using different methods and applications.
Things You Will Need
- 1The hard drive must be internally connected to a computer unit. You won't be able to copy data between two hard drives all by themselves. You need to have a computer system to facilitate the process.The hard drive you want to clone.
- 2Having a destination hard drive that has a relatively lower storage capacity will not do the trick.An extra hard drive that has the same storage capacity or more than that of the hard drive to be cloned.
- 3There are a lot of them. This article will guide you through the steps to using some of the most popular hard drive cloning tools in the market.A software for hard drive cloning.
- 4An ability to follow simple instructions.
- 5Depending on the size of your source hard drive and the speed of the two drives you are going to use, the clone speed may take at least an hour on average.A little bit of patience.
Steps to Cloning a Hard Drive on Windows using EaseUS Todo Backup
- 1Ensure that the source and the destination hard drives are connected to your computer's motherboard and appears on Windows' disk manager or "My Computer". If connecting your destination hard drive to the motherboard is not possible, you may buy or borrow from your friend a hard drive enclosure to be able to connect the destination drive to your computer's USB port.Prepare the Hard Drives to be used.
- 2This a free system backup utility that comes with many data backup and recovery features, including disk cloning. Todo Backup is only available for Windows platforms which include Windows 8, 7, Vista and XP.Download and Install EaseUS Todo Backup.
You will need to provide your name and e-mail address in order to qualify for a free download of the software. After downloading the software, you will need to agree to use the software for personal or home use only before you can proceed with the installation. - 3Open the application.
- 4There are two clone options provided: Disk clone and partition clone. Disk clone allows you to copy the entire hard disk drive, sector by sector, to another recipient drive. Partition clone is used to copy just a specific partition of your source hard drive. In this case, you will need to select the "disk clone" option.Click on the "Clone" option in the Options pane.
- 5Be extra careful with your selection. The last thing you would want to do is to interchange the source and the destination drives.Specify the clone source and the clone target destination.
Before you proceed, you can also opt to optimize the clone for a Solid State Drive destination by checking the "Optimize for SSD" checkbox. This is applicable if the destination drive is in fact an SSD.
Checking the "Sector by sector clone" checkbox will ensure that the destination drive is completely identical with the source drive. It will clone all the sectors of the source drive, even the blank and the bad ones. Generally, you can proceed without selecting this option. - 6This should start the disk cloning process. If your source drive contains the operating system you are currently running, the EaseUS software may prompt you to restart your computer first before the disk clone process proceeds.Click "Next".
- 7The cloning speed will vary, depending on the size of your source hard drive and the read/write speed of both the hard drives.Wait and be patient.
- 8After the clone is completed, turn off your computer.
- 9Make sure to discharge yourself of any static electricity before interacting with the internal components of your computer. To do this, you need to wear an anti-static wristband or if you do not have access to one, you can tap a smooth metal surface using your fingers. A good example of this is your computer's power supply.Unplug the source drive from its SATA slot on your computer's motherboard.
- 10Unplug the destination drive from its SATA slot and plug it to the SATA slot previously occupied by your source hard drive.
- 11If the clone process was successful, you will see your computer boot to Windows similarly to how it boots up with the original source drive.With only the destination drive plugged in, turn on your computer.
- 12Check your files through Windows Explorer or My Computer if they are all intact.
Steps to Cloning a Hard Drive without Booting to the Operating System
To perform hard drive cloning independent of the operating system, you will need to create a bootable CD, DVD or a USB containing a hard drive cloning software. Since this method does not boot to the operating system, it can be used to clone drives on either Windows, Mac or Linux based computers. In fact, it can even be used without an operating system installed. To create a bootable hard drive cloning tool, we need not to look further. The EaseUS Todo Backup can be infused into a bootable media and you would not need any third-party software to complete the process. The software itself has a built-in feature for creating a bootable CD, DVD or USB version of it. Here are the steps to create a bootable EaseUS Todo Backup application.
- 1While the bootable version that you are going to create is platform-independent, the EaseUS main application that is needed in order to create the bootable version needs to be installed on a Windows system.Download and install EaseUS Todo Backup on a Windows system.
Steps to Advanced Hard Drive Cloning using CloneZilla
If you like to get your hands a little bit dirty and you would not mind a little complication, you can opt to try CloneZilla in your hard drive cloning venture. CloneZilla is a free and open-source disk cloning tool that is basically similar to EaseUS Todo Backup or any other disk imaging/cloning program in the market. However, CloneZilla was primarily built for more complex disk cloning operations, particularly for cloning multiple disks simultaneously through a network. It comes in two versions: the CloneZilla Server which does the earlier mentioned operation, and the CloneZilla Live, which is built for single machine operations.
This section deals with cloning hard drives with the CloneZilla Live version. Unlike the EaseUS cloning application, CloneZilla cannot be installed as a standalone program on a live operating system. You need to restart your computer and boot to the CloneZilla application itself to start the process. Also, CloneZilla does not have a sophisticated user interface like EaseUS. Most of its operations are done in the terminal or console, which means you will be interacting with black or blue screen or with simple boxed menus.
Here are the complete steps to clone a hard drive using CloneZilla.
- 1There are two formats for download: ZIP and ISO. Generally, any of the two will work in this scenario. For this tutorial, we will use the ZIP version.Download CloneZilla.
- 2Create a CloneZilla Live bootable CD/DVD or USB.
- 3Reboot your computer.
- 4CD/DVD or USB)Access your computer's BIOS and set the boot priority order so that it boots to your bootable device first (e.g.
- 5Insert or plug in your bootable device to the computer.
- 6Save the BIOS changes and reboot.
- 7Your computer should now boot to the CloneZilla Live menu.
- 8Select the "CloneZilla" live option.
- 9If you are from North America or if you use similar standard North American keyboards, you can leave the default option selected, "Don't touch keymap", and proceed. If you use non-US keyboard layout, you may select "Select keymap from arch list" or "Select keymap from full list".Choose your language and keyboard setup.
- 10Select "Start_CloneZilla.
- 11Select "disk_to_local_disk" clone.
- 12Specify the source disk.
- 13Specify the destination disk.
- 14Before the cloning commences, you will be asked to confirm the cloning operation. There will be a couple of confirmation queries along the way. For each query, press the "Y" key on your keyboard and hit "Enter" to confirm.Confirm the disk cloning operation.
- 15Wait until CloneZilla finishes the clone operation.
- 16Select the second one which says "Run command exit or logout" by pressing the corresponding number two key on your keyboard.After a successful clone, CloneZilla will prompt you with two options you can choose between to proceed.
- 17This will shut down your computer.Choose "poweroff" in the ensuing interface.
- 18Unplug the source drive from its SATA slot on your computer's motherboard.
- 19Unplug the destination drive from its SATA slot and plug it to the SATA slot previously occupied by your source hard drive.
- 20If the clone process was successful, you will see your computer boot to the installed operating system similar to how it boots up with the original source drive.With only the destination drive plugged in, turn on your computer.
- 21Check your files to see if they are all intact.
Questions and Answers
Cloning the disk want me to restart my computer but after when I restart it there is a bug?
After I've select my source and my target, I click on proceed. But before beginning the copy, the software ask me to restart my computer and when I do it, my computer doesn't restart correctly. Please help me
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If you have problems with any of the steps in this article, please ask a question for more help, or post in the comments section below.
