Talking about disk clone, some users may not be unfamiliar with it. It refers to the process of making a 1:1 copy of a hard drive, such as HDD, SSD, or USB flash drive, etc. It moves both OS and files from the old hard drive to the new drive, which does great help when you want to upgrade or replace the current hard drive on your computer.
Disk imaging has the same effect as disk cloning. However, disk imaging copies all data into an image file, and you need to restore from the image file before you can use the copied data. Disk cloning omits the restoration process, so it’s a preferable way to transfer data from one hard drive to another.
Then, how to clone hard drive windows 10/11/8/7 easily? Just keep reading.
Professional disk clone software to migrate OS and files
There are a lot of cloning tools available for Windows users. Here I’d like to recommended AOMEI Backupper Professional due to its simplicity, security and reliability. Following are the powerful clone features of AOMEI Backupper:
★ Disk Clone
This clone type is used to copy an entire disk to another one. All data on the source disk, including the operating system, installed applications and user profiles, will be transferred to the destination disk. What’s more, the cloned OS remains bootable. You just need to set the cloned disk as the first boot option in BIOS to make your computer boot from it.
★ System Clone
This clone type can help you move only OS from the old hard drive to the new drive. It is useful when the target disk is smaller than the source disk and doesn’t have enough space to store all data on the source disk. All Windows PC systems are supported. You can use this feature to migrate Windows 10 to SSD, move Windows 11 to another hard drive, etc.
★ Partition Clone
This clone type is designed to copy a specified partition on a hard disk. Some users may use one partition to store some specific data, such as D drive for game files, and Partition Clone enables them to copy only game files to another drive for better game experience.
★ Helpful Clone Options
Before you start cloning a disk, you can configure the clone task with three clone options offered by AOMEI Backupper. If you are cloning to a larger disk, “Edit Partitions” can help you make full use of storage space on the larger disk. If you are cloning to an SSD, “SSD Alignment” allows you to improve the reading and writing speed of the destination SSD.
In addition, if you want to clone every sector on the source disk, including used and blank ones, “Sector By Sector Clone” will do you a favor.
Stepwise guide to clone a hard disk in Windows 10
First, prepare a target disk. Make sure it fits the disk interface on your computer and has enough capacity to hold all cloned data. Then, follow the steps below to begin hard drive cloning:
Step 1. Connect the target disk to your computer. If there’s no extra drive bay inside your computer, you can use a USB-to-SATA adapter to connect it via a USB port.
Step 2. Download and install AOMEI Backupper Professional. After launching this cloning tool, click Clone and select Disk Clone.
Step 3. When asked to choose the source disk, click on the old Windows 10 hard disk and click Next.
Step 4. When asked to choose the destination disk, click on the disk you just connected and click Next.
Step 5. (Optional) If the destination disk contains any data, you will receive a warning message prompting you that all data will be overwritten after cloning. So, backup files on the target disk in advance if you don’t want to lose them.
Step 6. Confirm the disk information of the source and destination disk. If there’s no problem, click Start Clone to begin copying one hard drive to another in Windows 10.
That’s all about how to clone a hard drive in Windows 11, 10, 8, 7. To clone a disk without OS, such as an external hard drive or pen drive, you can try free disk cloning software windows 10– AOMEI Backupper Standard. To create a Windows 10 backup, try the System/Disk/Partition/File Backup feature in AOMEI Backupper.