Cloning your hard drive creates a perfect one-to-one copy, fully bootable and exactly like the original. You’ll want to clone your drive if you’re backing up valuable data, migrating to a shiny new computer, or upgrading to a solid-state drive (SSD). Learn how to clone your hard drive on Windows computers and Macs with our step-by-step guide.

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Step 2: Set up the path to save the backup file and choose between the automatic backup or sector by sector options. After arranging everything, click on the 'Start' button and wait as the clone hard drive Windows 10 free software creates a clone disk. Now, you can keep the clone drive backup file safe and sound until you need it. May 08, 2020  How to clone your hard drive on MacOS Cloning a hard drive on MacOS is a little easier than Windows because you can use its built-in Disk Utility tool to perform the same function.

Select internal hard drive for Windows 10 and click “Next”. Select the external hard drive you prepare and click “Next”. Click “OK” to continue this operation. Tick the setting you need and then click “Start Clone”. Tip: This software also supports cloning external hard drive to external hard drive in Windows 10, 8, 7, XP, Vista. It's tricky - but ou can access mac drives under windows os! I used transmac to clone/manipulate mac drives/files under windows (back in my hackintosh days) - surely it has a weak workflow and you can't do everthing - but it's better than nothing! There is a 15 days trial: CLICK ME. Install it, connect the hard drive and when windows tells you. To clone a hard drive, you will need a way to connect the second hard drive to your Mac. Our 2.5' Hard Drive Enclosure or one of our Hard Drive Upgrade Kits works great for cloning your drive over. To clone your hard drive, we recommend a program called SuperDuper!, by Shirt Pocket Software. The following instructions assume that you’ll be.

What does cloning a drive mean?

A cloned hard drive is an exact copy of the original, including the operating system and all the files it needs to boot up and run. Just remember that cloning a drive and backing up your files are different:

• Backups copy only your files. When you back up to an external hard drive or to the cloud, you’re creating duplicates of your files, but that backup cannot function as an independent drive on its own. Mac users can perform backups with Time Machine, and Windows also offers its own built-in backup utilities.
• Cloning copies everything. A cloned drive is exactly the same as its original. If you put a cloned drive into a computer, you’ll be able to start it up and use it normally.

Why you should consider cloning your hard drive

It’s never a bad idea to protect yourself with an extra copy of your hard drive. In general, most people clone their drives for one of the following reasons:

• Creating a full backup: A backup is invaluable in the event of a malware infection. Many types of malware can damage your files, data, or even the entire OS. Ransomware encrypts your files and renders them useless, while demanding a ransom to decrypt them. If you already have a cloned hard drive before you get infected, you can simply wipe your system clean and start from scratch with the clone. But if you haven’t cloned your drive before you get malware on your system, it’s already too late — so clone your drive now to be prepared.

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• Migrating to a new drive: Getting a new computer? If you clone your old drive, you don’t have to reinstall everything on the new machine. After you’re done, you can remove your original drive and mount it in an external enclosure to keep as a backup. Be sure to properly dispose of your old device!

• Upgrading your drive: There are plenty of reasons why moving from a hard disk drive (HDD) to an SSD is a good idea — especially considering how much it’ll speed up your computer. If you’re switching from an HDD to an SSD, cloning can help you move all your data over to the new drive.

How to clone HDD to SSD

Cloning an HDD to an SSD is just as easy as migrating from one HDD to another. The process is basically the same, regardless of the type of drive you’re using. Your disk cloning software — Disk Utility on macOS, or a third-party option on Windows — will handle all the technical aspects. Many tools even have special features that optimize the cloning process for SSD drives.

All you need to do is make sure your new SSD is large enough to hold everything that’s currently on your HDD and check that both drives are formatted in the same style. After you’re done, you can optimize configuration settings to get the most out of your new SSD.

Things to do before you can clone your drive

Trust accounting software for mac. Before you clone your drive, there are a few preparations you’ll need to make. You also may need to borrow or buy a few pieces of equipment if you don’t already have them.

You will need:

• A second drive of sufficient size. Cloning requires two drives: the original drive with your data and OS, and a second drive that will become the clone. Be sure that your second drive has enough space to hold all the cloned data, plus some extra space for future files.
• A way to connect your drives. If you’re installing a second drive inside your PC, you don’t need to worry about this. Otherwise, you’ll need an adapter or external dock so you can connect your new drive to your computer before cloning.
• A power supply. Connect your power supply if cloning from a laptop. Cloning can take quite a bit of time, especially if you have a lot of data, and you don’t want your battery to die before the process is complete.

If you’re an Apple user, skip ahead for instructions to clone your hard drive on Mac.

How to clone your hard drive in Windows

Once you’re all set up, you can begin to clone your Windows hard drive. Before you begin, clean out your current drive. Over time, drives get bogged down with tons of unnecessary temporary data, caches, duplicate files, and apps you never use. The cloning process will take significantly longer if it includes all of this useless data. The easiest way to get your drive sparkling is to use a specialized cleaning tool like AVG TuneUp, which will get rid of gigabytes’ worth of junk data and other unwanted files quickly and easily.

Once your drive is clean and ready to go, it’s time to clone your Windows hard drive.

1. Download and install a trusted drive-cloning tool

Windows doesn’t have any built-in cloning utilities, so you’ll need to download one on your own. Our chosen hard drive cloner for this article is Macrium Reflect Free. Another popular option is EaseUS. Here’s how Macrium Reflect looks:

2. Select your source drive

The top portion of the main window shows your computer’s drives and their partitions. Windows sometimes creates small partitions of up to a few GB that house repair tools or boot utilities. You’ll need to copy those along with your data if you want your new drive to function independently. If not, just uncheck them.

Once you’ve made your choices, click Clone this disk.

3. Specify the clone destination

Next, you’ll need to tell your disk cloner where it should place the cloned data. After clicking Clone this disk, click Select a disk to clone to. If your new drive hasn’t been formatted properly, your cloning tool can take care of this as part of the process. Just click Delete Existing partition and let it get to work.

4. Set the clone to run

You’re ready to clone! Asus 1001pxd driver download. Once the process starts, it may take a few hours, depending on how much data you have. If you’re cloning from a laptop, make sure its power supply is plugged in.

Once the process is complete, you can start using your cloned drive immediately, or store it away as a backup.

5. Enter UEFI/BIOS to ensure the clone has worked

You can boot your computer from the cloned drive to check that everything’s working properly. To do this, you’ll need to enter your BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) or UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface), and then tell your computer to work from the cloned drive instead of the original one. The BIOS is your computer’s firmware settings, and on newer computers, BIOS has been replaced with an updated interface known as UEFI.

On older machines, you can access your BIOS by inputting a specific key or key combination as your computer starts up. It may be F12, F2, Esc, or Delete, but your computer should display this information on the monitor during the initial startup stages. In the BIOS, look for an option that says “Boot Order” or simply “Boot”. From here, you can select the drive your PC should use for starting up. Select the cloned drive to test it out.

You can reach the UEFI on a newer PC through the Windows menu in the lower-left corner of your screen. Open the Windows menu, then click Power, hold the Shift key, then click Restart. After a reset, your computer will show you a series of advanced configuration options. Select Troubleshoot > Advanced options > UEFI Firmware Settings, then click Restart. Inside the UEFI, you can instruct your computer to use the cloned drive.

Clone your hard drive on a Mac

Your Mac already has everything you need to clone its drive, right in the Disk Utility tool. To avoid copying over gigabytes of unnecessary files, broken registry items, duplicate photos, programs you no longer need, and more, you should deep clean your Mac before cloning. You can do it manually, but the cleaning process will be much faster, easier, and more thorough with a dedicated tool such as AVG TuneUp for Mac.

Once your drive contains only the data you actually want, it’s time to get started. Note that Disk Utility refers to cloning as “restoring” a drive, but it’s the same thing.

1. Run Disk Utility

You’ll find this helpful tool by navigating through Applications > Utilities and selecting Disk Utility. Alternatively, open Spotlight by typing Command + Space and search for Disk Utility.

2. Select your destination drive and hit Restore

With Disk Utility open, select View > Show All Devices from the top menu bar. Then, look in the left-hand sidebar and find the drive that you want to use as your clone. Bear in mind that you’re selecting the target drive, not the original drive that you’ll be cloning. Lastly, click Restore.

3. Select your source drive from the drop-down menu

Disk Utility will display a new window with a drop-down menu labeled Restore from. This is where you’ll choose your source drive. Note that Disk Utility warns you that this process will erase anything on the destination drive.

In most cases, you’ll have just one drive on your Mac. Select it from the drop-down menu, then click Restore to begin the process.

4. Wait for the clone to take place before hitting “Done” when prompted

Disk Utility will show you a status bar that slowly fills up as it clones your drive. When it’s finished, click Done to complete the operation.

5. Boot up the new drive to ensure the clone has worked

You can test if your cloned drive works properly by booting up your computer from it.

How long does cloning a hard drive take?

The time it takes to clone a hard drive depends on your cloning speed and data size. For example, if your cloning speed is a steady 100 Mb/s, it’ll take just under 90 minutes to clone a drive with 500 GB of data. Cloning the same 500 GB drive at 50 Mb/s would double the cloning time to nearly three hours.

A faster cloning speed will quicken the process, but larger volumes of data will add more time. If you have both the source and destination drive in the same computer, the direct connection between the two should prove faster than cloning to an external drive. Many drives also transfer data at speeds well below their advertised maximums, as these numbers are not intended to represent the type of sustained activity cloning requires.

If you have a lot of files on your drive, you may want to find something to do while you wait.

Are there any risks?

The risks of cloning a drive are very low. Even if you’ve ignored our advice and are cloning from a laptop running on its own batteries, your source drive won’t be wiped or corrupted if the computer dies mid-clone. All you’ll have lost is time, as you’ll need to begin the process again.

The one potential risk is if you’re using a destination drive with important data on it. Cloning will overwrite everything on the target drive, so be sure that you don’t have anything valuable on there that isn’t backed up anywhere else. It’s always best to clone to a new or empty destination drive.

Give your new hard drive the TuneUp it needs

To make sure your new hard drive runs smoothly in the long term, it’s important to keep it as clean and light as possible. AVG TuneUp continually prunes your drive to remove the unnecessary temporary data that apps and the OS produce every day, so you don’t get bogged down with unwanted junk. TuneUp also snoozes inactive programs and background processes to ensure that your computer’s resources are dedicated to your most important tasks. Enjoy optimal performance and speed for years to come.

If you need to migrate your data or are looking to keep a backup handy, you can clone your hard drive. Here's how to do it in Windows and on a Mac.

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There are plenty of great services that can back up your files, but sometimes you need something a bit more bulletproof. Maybe you're migrating your Windows installation to a new drive, or perhaps you want a complete one-to-one copy in case anything goes wrong. In those cases, your best bet is to clone your hard drive, creating an exact copy you can swap in and boot up right away.

Some backup services, like IDrive and Acronis, have built-in disk-cloning features, supplementing to the normal file backup. We'll be using some free tools designed specifically for drive cloning in this guide, though. If you want a true backup solution with supplemental cloning features, check out one of the paid options. But for one-off clones (like if you're migrating your OS to a new drive), these tools will be all you need.

Connect Your Secondary Drive

For this process, you'll obviously need two drives: the source drive (with the data you want to clone), and the destination drive (where you're cloning that data to). If you have a desktop computer and both drives are installed internally (or you're just cloning to a USB external drive for backup), great! You're ready to continue.

If, however, you're using a laptop with only one drive bay, you'll need an external SATA-to-USB adapter, dock, or enclosure to connect your bare drive to the computer. Once you've connected your drive, you can go through the cloning process, then disconnect it and install the drive internally.

In most cases, your destination drive will probably need to be as large as, or larger than, your source drive. If it isn't, you'll need to free up space on your source drive and shrink the main partition down to fit. (You'll probably only need to do this if you're migrating from a hard drive to a smaller SSD; we have a separate guide on that process here.)

Windows Users: Clone Your Drive with Macrium Reflect Free

Windows users have lots of great cloning tools available, but we'll be using Macrium Reflect Free. It's free, easy to use, and widely loved by many, so it's hard to go wrong.

To install Macrium Reflect, download the Home Use installer and start it up. It's just a tiny tool that will download the actual installer for you, based on the type of license you want. Choose the temporary folder for these files—I just put them in my Downloads folder—and click the Download button.

Once it's finished, it'll automatically launch the Macrium installation wizard, which you can click right on through—the default options should be fine for our purposes. You can safely delete all the installer files from your Downloads folder once the wizard has finished.

Start Cloning Process

Open Macrium Reflect and you'll see a detailed list of the disks connected to your computer. You have two main options: you can directly clone one disk to another, or create an image of a disk. Cloning allows you to boot from the second disk, which is great for migrating from one drive to another. Imaging, on the other hand, allows you to store as many full, one-to-one copies of your source disk as the destination's space will allow, which is useful for backups.

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Select the disk you want to copy (making sure to check the leftmost box if your disk has multiple partitions) and click 'Clone This Disk' or 'Image This Disk.'

Choose Clone Destination

In the next window, choose your destination disk—the one that will house your newly copied data. Note that this will erase all data on the disk, so be careful which one you choose. If there's any old data on it, you may want to select it and click the 'Delete Existing Partitions' button until the drive is empty.

If you're cloning to a larger drive, you'll want to click the 'Cloned Partition Properties' button at the bottom of this window, and extend your main partition to fill up the entire space of the disk.

Schedule Your Clone

The next page will ask if you want to schedule this clone, which is useful if you want to regularly image your drive for backup purposes. I've skipped this, since I'm just doing a one-time clone. On the page after that, you can also save the backup and its schedule as an XML file for safe keeping, but I've unchecked that option for the same reason—I'm only doing this once for now.

Boot From Your Cloned Drive

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Finally, Macrium Reflect will begin the cloning process. This can take some time depending on the size of your drive, so give it time to do its thing. If you cloned your drive, you should be able to boot from it now by selecting it in your BIOS. If you're imaging your drive, you can actually keep the second drive connected for future image backups.

Mac Users: Clone Your Drive with SuperDuper

If you're on a Mac, we recommend SuperDuper for all your cloning needs. It's free, simple to use, and has been around for years. Download the app, open the DMG file, and double-click on the icon to install. (Don't drag it to your /Applications folder like you would most Mac apps; double-clicking on it should install it to your computer.)

Once installed, open SuperDuper and you'll be greeted with its incredibly simple, intuitive interface. In the first menu next to 'Copy,' select the source disk you want to clone. In the second menu, select the destination disk you're cloning to—this will fully erase the drive in that second menu, so make sure there isn't anything important on it! When you're ready, click the 'Copy Now' button. The process will begin. (Yeah, it's that easy.)

Finalize Your Drive Clone

This may take a while, but when it's done, you have two choices. If you want to replace your Mac's internal drive with the new drive (say, if you're migrating to a larger drive), you can open up your Mac and swap those now, then boot up as normal.

If you want to boot your cloned drive from USB, you can hold the Option key as your Mac starts up and select it from the boot list. Your cloned drive will be in the exact state your computer was during the cloning process, and you can continue working without skipping a beat.