Jun 11, 2020 2. MiniTool Partition Wizard Pro. Next best hard disk cloning software for Windows 10, 8, 7, MiniTool Partition Wizard Pro is an all-round disk management software that also features an option to clone hard disk Windows.With this hard drive management software, you can clone your hard disk, merge your hard disk partitions and extend your computer’s partitions as well.
- Macrium Hard Drive Cloning Free Software
- Free Hard Drive Cloner Mac
- Free Mac Cloning Software
- Free Mac Disk Cloner
As you may know, hard drive clone is the course of copying all contents from one hard drive to another via cloning software or hardware. Usually we use it to upgrade current hard drive or do a disk backup. Maybe you would ask how to clone a hard drive in Windows or Mac. Luckily! Two simple and practical solutions will be shown below.
Preparations before cloning hard disk
- Jan 16, 2020 EaseUS free hard drive cloning software is with a slick interface, plus a range of cloning options. Though it's free, you can find an array of functionalities available for time-unlimited use, which you can only see in the commercial versions of its top 3 rivals.
- Easeus Todo Backup is a free software to clone hard drive. The cloning option is not available for full hard drive at a time, but it can only clone a hard drive partition in one go. To view the Hard Drive cloning option, click on the Clone button. A new pop up appears which displays all the connected disks to your computer with their partitions.
- Jun 29, 2020 Hard drive cloning is a process of creating 1 to 1 copy of the content of hard drive or solid-state drive. The contents are saved as a disk image file and can be transferred to storage devices like DVD, hard drive, or USB drive. In case, if your original hard drive fails, you can quickly swap it.
- Apr 01, 2020 Well, whatever the reason, to clone Windows 10 HDD to another hard drive, cloning software is needed. Just keep reading to learn the best cloning software that free for Windows OS. The best free HDD cloning software for Windows 10. People care more about the safety, practicability and easy operation of Windows 10 HDD clone.
Can’t wait to know the operation steps? Don’t hurry! Some preparations need to be done before cloning.
- Connect the target drive to your computer. Make sure that it has enough space and can be detected by the computer.
- Don’t forget to prepare a screwdriver if you are a laptop user. After cloning, the screwdriver can be used to replace the old hard drive.
- All data on the new drive will be deleted during the cloning process. If you have some important data on the new hard drive, you’d better do a disk backup in advance.
- Prepare a reliable cloning utility. If you don’t have such a program, please refer to the next section.
Clone Windows hard drive with AOMEI Backupper Standard
To clone hard drive easily in Windows, it is suggested to use AOMEI Backupper Standard. Simple steps and intuitive interface make your hard drive clone effortless. But most of all, it’s free! This utility supports Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP currently.
This freeware will clone only used part of the old drive by default. Therefore, it enables you to clone larger drive to smaller drive as long as the smaller drive can hold all data on the larger drive. In addition, it is capable to improve the performance of your SSD. Let’s see how it works!
Before cloning, you need to download, install and launch this freeware.
Step 1. Select Clone from the left side. Then click Disk Clone. (To copy only OS to new drive, please use System Clone in AOMEI Backupper Professional.)
Note: This version only supports cloning disk with the same partition tyle, such as, cloning GPT disk to GPT disk. If you want to clone GPT system disk to MBR or migrate MBR system disk to GPT, you could consider upgrading to AOMEI Backupper Professional.
Step 2. Select the Source Disk (here is Disk 0) you plan to clone. Then click Next to continue.
Step 3. Select the Destination Disk (here is Disk 1) to clone the source drive to. Then click Next to go on.
Step 4. Click Start Clone to execute after your confirmation.
Tips:
- Edit Partitions allows you to resize partitions. Under this option, you can choose Copy without resizing partitions, Add unused space to all partitions or Manually adjust partition size. The last two features require you to upgrade to the Professional edition.
- Sector by sector clone offers every sector cloning, whether it is used or not. You can use it to restore formatted and deleted data on the original hard drive. It requires that the size of the target drive must be equal to or larger than the source drive.
- SSD Alignment can be used to accelerate the reading and writing speed of SSD. If you want to clone hard drive to SSD, it is strongly recommended to choose this option.
Step 5. Now, you need to change boot order in BIOS or replace the old hard drive to boot from the cloned drive. The second method is recommended.
So what else might be tried? Of course, Macrium Reflect 7 is also a good choice. See the official website for additional details. By the way, if you are a Windows Server user, please turn to AOMEI Backupper Server.
Clone Mac hard drive with Disk Utility
Disk Utility is a macOS and Mac OS X system utility that allows users to perform hard drives and storage drives related tasks. It's free and also comes built-in with every Mac OS. Disk Utility is designed to create clones, even though the application calls this process a Restore, just like restoring data from the source drive to the target drive.
With this utility, you can clone HDD to SSD or new HDD in Mac. Aside from hard drive clone, Disk Utility also works well on disk formatting, disk repair, integrity verification, etc. All the operation steps are also very easy to learn even for a beginner. Now, let’s learn how to use it!
Step 1. Open Disk Utility on your Mac from Utilities or Applications.
Step 2. Click Erase from the top of the Disk Utility interface.
Step 3. Select a media, which you want as your backup or destination drive from the left side.
Step 4. From the Format drop down list select the format type as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Then click Erase to remount the drive on the Desktop.
Step 5. Select Restore from the Disk Utility main window.
Step 6. Select the target drive, drag and drop it at the Source field.
Step 7. Select the destination drive, drag and drop it at the Destination field.
Step 8. Click Restore at the Disk Utility main window.
Macrium Hard Drive Cloning Free Software
Free Hard Drive Cloner Mac
Tips:
Free Mac Cloning Software
- As for the old hard drive, you can keep it as a backup or reformat the hard drive to take it as your secondary storage after cloning.
- As a freeware, Steller can also be used to clone Mac hard drive. You can download it to have a try!
Free Mac Disk Cloner
Now, you have learned how to clone a hard drive in Windows or Mac. Apart from copying hard drive to HDD or SSD, you may also need to clone SSD to new SSD or HDD. Fortunately, these goals also can be achieved through the detailed steps mentioned in this article.