How to Clone a Failing Hard Drive in Windows 10 Without Data Loss

PAGE CONTENT:

The Best Disk Cloning Software for Cloning a Failing Hard Drive
How to Clone a Failing Hard Drive to New HDD/SSD in Windows 10/8/7
How to Clone a Failing Hard Drive in WinPE with a Bootable Disk

How Do I Clone a Failing Hard Drive and Transfer Data to a New HDD

"Hi, does anyone know how to transfer or clone a failing hard drive to a new HDD or SSD? I have a problem that my second hard drive keeps failing on my computer, and I often can't access the saved files and data on the drive. Some of my friends recommend me clone and transfer all saved data to a new disk. But the problem is that how can I clone a failing drive to the new disk? I know nothing about disk cloning. So if you have a simple way to help me out, let me know. Thank you."

Most electronic storage devices, including hard drives, fail now and then due to unspecific reasons, for instance:

Sudden forcible power off during startup and shutdown
Misuse of the partition
Physical bad sectors
Head assembly damaged
Used for a very long time, limited lifetime

In the best of cases, hard drives fail gradually. It doesn't end all at once, giving you the chance to react, copy your data, and replace the storage device before facing a fatal failure.

5 Signs of Hard Drive Failure

There are five main features of hard drive damage.

Slowing down the computer, frequent freezes, blue screen of death
The computer can't start
Strange sounds
Files fail to open or contain corrupted data
Accumulation of bad sectors

When your computer and disk have these problems, when you are facing hard disk damage, compared to repairing the hard disk, your first priority should be to export the data on your disk as soon as possible to ensure data security. And cloning the hard drive is a great choice. But the problem is how to clone a failing hard drive when your computer can't boot or when you can't access your disk? Here comes a competent disk cloning program to help you.

The Best Disk Cloning Software for Cloning a Failing Hard Drive

Qiling Disk Copy is one of the best disk cloning programs on the market. It enables you to clone disk with bad sectors, clone a small disk to a large one, clone HDD to SSD, clone OS, and so on. Depending on the results of hard disk failing, Qiling Disk Copy provides you with different solutions to clone a failing hard drive in Windows 10.

If you've just encountered problems with corrupted data and strange sounds of the damaged hard drive, you can clone it directly in the Windows environment. But if you run into problems with bad sectors, the computer won't boot, and Windows runs slowly, you'd better clone a failing hard drive in WinPE with a bootable disk. How to do it? Read the tutorial in-depth.

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How to Clone a Failing Hard Drive to New HDD/SSD in Windows 10/8/7

Qiling Disk Copy is a powerful software that enables you to simply clone and transfer dead or failed hard drive data to a new disk offline without losing any data.

You can download, install this risk-free software on your PC and activate this software to gain the full capacity for cloning your failing disk to a new HDD/SSD with all contained data by a few simple clicks on your Windows 10/8/7/XP and even Linux computer now.

Step-by-Step Guide to Clone A Failing Hard Drive in Windows 10/8/7

Step 1: Download, install and run Qiling Disk Copy on your PC.

Choose "Disk/Partition clone" to start.

Step 2. Select the hard drive that you want to copy or clone. Click "Next" to continue.

Step 3: Select the destination disk.

Note: The destination disk should be at least the same big or even larger than the source disk if you want to copy or clone the source hard disk.

Step 4: Check and edit the disk layout.

If your destination disk is an SSD drive, do remember to tick "Optimize for SSD" option if the target is SSD.

Step 5: Click "Proceed" to start the hard drive cloning process.

A warning message tells you that the data on the destination disk will be overwritten. Click "OK" to continue if you do not have important data on the destination disk.

How to Clone a Failing Hard Drive in WinPE with a Bootable Disk

When your computer can't start normally, neither OS or disk controller can access the failing hard drive nor any type of read and write operations can be performed, you can only clone the failing hard drive and transfer data to a new disk with a bootable disk. See how to make it with the help of Qiling Disk Copy.

Free Download

Step 1. Download, install and run Qiling Disk Copy on a healthy Windows computer. And connect an external storage device like a USB flash drive or and external hard drive to the PC. Click "Create bootable media".

Step 2. Select USB and select your device, click "Proceed".

Wait for the process to complete and then you'll get a bootable disk.

Step 3. Connect the bootable disk USB and a new SSD/HDD to the computer on which you want to clone the disk and set the computer to boot from the bootable disk by changing the boot order in BIOS.

Step 4. On Qiling Disk Copy, choose "Disk/Partition clone" to start.

Step 5. Select the hard drive that you want to copy or clone. Click "Next" to continue.

Step 6. Select the destination disk where you want to clone/copy the old disk and click Next to continue.

Step 7. Check and edit the disk layout as Autofit the disk, Copy as the source or Edit disk layout. Autofit the disk is recommended.

If your destination disk is an SSD drive, do remember to tick "Optimize for SSD" option if the target is SSD.

Step 8. Click "Proceed" to start the disk cloning or disk copying process now.

A warning message tells you that the data on the destination disk will be overwritten. Click "OK" to continue if you do not have important data on the destination disk.

And then shut down the computer, insert the new hard drive to your computer and replace the failing drive. You can reboot your PC and use the data on a new disk by now.

If the replaced drive is a system disk, you need to set the computer to boot from a new hard drive instead of the old one in BIOS. And then restart your computer for reusing data on new disk again.

Cloning a Failing Hard Drive FAQs

1. Can I clone a hard drive with bad sectors?

There are two types of bad sectors on hard drives, and these are logical bad sectors and physical bad sectors. You can clone a hard drive with bad sectors in these two circumstances, but the solutions are unlike.

2. How do I clone a hard drive with bad sectors?

When there are logical bad sectors, and your computer can access the disk, you can run the CHKDSK /F command lines to fix the bad sectors, then clone damaged hard drive in Windows 10 using Qiling Disk Copy. However, if there are physical bad sectors on your hard drive, you need to use Qiling Disk Copy to clone it in the WinPE environment.

3. How do I backup a failed hard drive?

This article provides you two ways to clone and back up a failed hard drive. If you can enter your computer normally and access the hard drive properly, you can back up the failed hard drive in the Windows environment directly. If not, you need to back up the failed hard drive in WinPE with a bootable disk.

4. How do I clone a bad hard drive to a new one?

Qiling Disk Copy can help clone a bad hard drive to a new one, whether it's an HDD or SSD. You can clone a bad hard drive with a boot disk in WinPE.