How to Clone Server Hard Drive on Windows Server 2019/2016/2012
Do you want to upgrade or replace your old and small Windows Server 2012/2008 hard drive with a newer and larger one for better performance? Don't worry if you don't know how to do so. We'll show you how to clone a Server hard drive to a new HDD/SSD on this page.
PAGE CONTENT:
- 1. Preparation - Get Everything Ready
- 2. Clone Server Hard Drive - Clone to New Hard Drive
- 3. Set Cloned Hard Drive Bootable - Make New Server Disk Bootable
By following this tutorial, you'll successfully upgrade your Windows Server hard drive, transferring the Windows Server system and all the data from one hard drive to another safely.
How to Clone Windows Server Hard Drive
When it comes to upgrading a hard disk, migrating data to a new disk, an ordinary Windows user may come up with the idea of using "Copy" + "Paste" for help. However, these jobs cannot simply "copy" and "paste" the Windows Server system and data to another new disk. The Server system won't be able to boot properly by doing so.
Is there an efficient way that can help to upgrade Windows Server hard drive? Yes. Cloning Server hard drive is an efficient way to transfer data and system in Windows Server 2016, 2012, 2008, 2003. To do so, you'll need reliable Server cloning software for help.
Download Windows Server Cloning Software
Here, reliable Windows Server cloning software - Qiling Backup Server with its disk cloning feature makes the disk cloning process easy for all levels of Windows Server users.
You can download it here and apply it to clone and upgrade the hard disk to a new HDD/SSD with the following guide now:
After downloading and installing this software on your Server computer, let's start cloning your hard disk now.
#1. Preparation - Make Old and New Hard Disk Ready
With Qiling Backup installed on your Windows Server computer, you still have one more thing to do. It is to get both your old and new hard disks ready.
#1. Clear Useless Files on Old Drive
It's important that you delete junk files, and remove useless large files from your old disk. That will help you save a lot of useful space and speed up the cloning process.
#2. Install and Initialize New HDD/SSD
Remember to purchase an equal or even bigger HDD/SSD for the disk cloning. If the new hard disk has a smaller storage capacity, you'll lose data or the disk cloning process may fail.
Now, you can install the new hard drive correctly to your computer and follow the steps to initialize it:
Step 1. Shut down Windows Server PC and install the new HDD or SSD correctly.
Plug the new hard drive into your computer motherboard via the SATA cable and power cable.
Step 2. Press Windows + R keys, type diskmgmt.msc, and click "OK".
Step 3. Enter Disk Management, right-click the new hard drive or SSD, and select "Initialize Disk".
Step 4. Set the disk as the same partition style as the old source disk - MBR or GPT. Click "OK" to confirm.
#2. Clone Windows Server Hard Drive with Server Clone Software
You can now use Qiling Server cloning software to clone the Windows Server system, installed applications, and all data on the old disk to another hard drive or SSD now. It can help users do these operations in the least time and with the simplest steps.
Tutorial: Upgrade and Clone Windows Server 2019/2016/2012/2008/2003 Hard Drive
Step 1. Launch Qiling Server cloning software and click "Clone".
Step 2. Choose this entire hard disk or simply a single partition on it as the source disk. Click "Next".
Step 3. Since you're going to clone the selected drive to an SSD, choose the SSD as the destination disk, then click "Next".
Step 4. Preview the disk layout and click "Proceed" to execute the Server hard drive cloning operation.
Also, tick the option "Optimize for SSD" to achieve a better SSD performance after clone.
#3. Set Cloned Hard Drive Bootable after Cloning
Note that if you cloned a Windows Server system drive, it's important to set up the cloned drive after the operation. Here is how to set up your new HDD or SSD as the boot drive on the Windows Server computer:
Step 1. Restart the Server PC and press F2/F12/Del to enter BIOS.
Step 2. Go to the Boot section, set the Server computer to boot from the new hard drive.
Step 3. Save the changes, exit BIOS, restart PC.
After this, your computer will boot up Windows Server on the new hard drive. All you need is to wait for the process to complete.
Conclusion
On this page, we introduced reliable Server cloning software - Qiling Backup to help you upgrade and clone a Windows Server hard drive.
- To do so, you need to download reliable Server cloning software and get old/new disks ready first.
- Then, you can clone Windows Server 2019/2016/2012 hard drive.
- Last, when the cloning process completes, remember to set up the new disk as the boot drive in Windows Server BIOS.
See, this is the whole process of cloning a Windows Server hard drive to a new HDD/SSD without data loss nor boot issue. If you have further questions about cloning hard drive or Qiling cloning software, check out the answers below.
People Also Ask About Cloning Server Hard Drive
1. What to do or how to deal with the old disk after cloning the Server hard drive?
Some of you may have the same question on how to deal with the old drive after cloning the disk to a new one. Here are two common ways that you can try:
1. Clean the hard drive and use it as a second data drive.
2. Clean the drive and sell it.
So how to thoroughly clean a hard drive? You can wipe a hard drive with a reliable disk management tool like Qiling Partition Master for help.
2. What else can Qiling Server cloning software do?
Besides disk cloning on Windows Server 2019/2016/2012/2008/2003, etc., you can also apply Qiling Backup to execute other operations on Server computers, including:
- Backup Server system partition
- Backup MS SQL Server, MS Exchange Server
- Backup and recover files
Apart from the basic backing up features, you may also use this software to backup the Windows Server system and recover to dissimilar hardware.
3. Does cloning a hard drive copy the OS?
As you know that cloning is an operation that copies everything from the target drive to another hard drive, making everything on the new disk exactly the same as the old one.
Therefore, if you cloned a system hard disk, the answer is yes. The cloning process will copy your OS to the new disk.
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