How to Clone a Hard Drive on Windows & Mac [2021]

Cloning a hard drive is easier than you might expect. Follow to see how to easily clone a hard drive and transfer everything to a new hard drive or SSD with ease.

PAGE CONTENT:

Overview of Cloning a Hard Drive
Preparations for Cloning Hard Drive
How to Clone a Hard Drive on Windows

Case: Can I Clone My Hard Drive Including Operating System?

"Does cloning a hard drive copy the OS? My computer hard disk is nearly full and one of my friends told me that I can upgrade the old disk to a new drive by using reliable hard disk cloning software.

I plan to buy a new hard drive so as to clone the old disk to the new drive. But can I clone my hard drive including the operating system?"

According to most normal Windows and Mac users, they don't know that they can upgrade their computer hard drive when it grows old or out of disk space to a bigger one. Some of you may have heard of this but don't know how to execute the disk cloning operation on your own without losing data and OS, right?

In the following, we'll show you the whole process of how to clone a hard drive to a new or a bigger hard drive/SSD with step by step guide. Check out and learn how to upgrade your computer disk on Windows and Mac with ease now.

Overview of Cloning a Hard Drive

In this part, you will learn:

1. What does cloning a hard drive mean?
2. When do you need to clone a hard drive?

Cloning a hard drive is a process that allows you to copy all the content on a disk, including original data, operating system, and all boot files that the OS needs to boot up and run, to another equal-sized or bigger hard drive or SSD. Unlike backing up files, cloning a drive is to create an exact copy of your entire disk with the OS included.

When Do You Need to Clone a Hard Drive

So when do you consider to or when should you clone a hard drive to a new one? You may need to clone hard drive in many situations as listed below:

The old disk is out of space - Upgrade hard drive to larger hard disk
The computer is getting old and slow - Upgrade hard drive to a newer disk
To transfer the whole contents of your hard drive
Can't migrate OS by copying and pasting Windows files to a new hard drive
To protect data from virus or malware infection - Create a full backup of disk data

So how to clone or upgrade hard drive safely and successfully? Follow the introductions as shown below, you'll get reliable disk clone software and a complete guide to clone one hard drive to another disk on your own.

Preparations for Cloning Hard Drive

Before you start cloning hard disk, here are some preparation jobs that need to be done in advance:

#1. Make Hard Drive Ready

Get a second drive with sufficient capacity. To get a smooth disk cloning process, the second drive needs to be equal to or even share a bigger capacity than your current hard drive.
Connect the new drive to PC. If your computer has only one disk slot, connect it correctly to your PC via a SATA-to-USB connection cable. If your computer has a second slot, install the new drive to your PC.
Initialize the new hdd/ssd. If you need to clone and upgrade the hard drive in Windows PC, initialize the new drive in Disk Management.

#2. Download Reliable Hard Drive Cloning Software

As the tools for disk cloning on Windows and Mac computers are different, you should also download and install the right disk cloning software based on your operating system.

Best Windows Disk Cloning Software Free Download

As Windows doesn't have a built-in disk cloning tool, downloading a third-party disk clone software is necessary. Here, Qiling Windows backup software with a powerful disk clone feature is recommended.

It supports to clone and copy your entire hard drive to another disk in two levels: file-by-file copy & sector-by-sector copy.

Free Download

How to Clone a Hard Drive on Windows

Applies to: Clone hard drive to HDD/SSD in Windows 10/8/7/XP, and even Windows Server machines.

So how to clone your current computer hard drive to another disk using Qiling backup? It offers safe hard drive disk copy/clone solution to transfer your data on the old disk to a new one.

With it, you can back up the system such as clone system disk Windows 10 or image hard drive in case of computer crash or system failure. The whole process goes through two phrases:

Phrase 1 - Clone a Hard Drive

Detailed Steps to Clone a Hard Drive

If you prefer a step-by-step guide, refer to the steps below and learn how to clone hard drive with this hard drive clone software:

Free Download

1. Launch Qiling disk cloning software and click "Disk/partition clone" feature in the tools page.

2. Select the source disk you want to clone and click Next.

3. Select the destination disk and click Next.

4. Preview the disk layout to confirm the settings of the source and destination disk. Tick "Optimize for SSD" to optimize SSD's performance.

Tips:

The destination disk could be a hard disk or an SSD. It must have enough space.
Optimize for SSD - If the destination disk is an SSD, checking this option will ensure sector alignment in the process.
Sector by sector clone - A sector by sector clone ensures that the destination hard disk/partition is exactly the same as the source hard disk/partition. It will clone all the sectors if the option is checked, even if the sector is blank.
Create a Portable Windows USB drive - This option ensures that the cloned USB system disk is able to boot normally.

5. Click Proceed to execute disk clone.

Phrase 2- Make Cloned Hard Drive Bootable

When you finish the disk cloning process, remember to install your new hard drive to your computer. Then set computer to boot up from the new disk.

Here are the steps to make your cloned HDD/SSD bootable:

Step 1. Restart PC and press F2/F12/Del to enter BIOS.

Step 2. Go to the Boot menu, set the new disk as the first boot drive at the Boot Priority section.

Step 3. Save all the changes and restart PC.

Your computer will automatically boot up from the newly cloned disk.

To Sum Up

This page explained what is a disk cloning process and tells when you should consider cloning a hard drive. Besides, we also offered a comprehensive solution to help you successfully clone a hard drive in Windows and Mac with reliable disk cloning hard drives.

In order to guarantee a smooth disk cloning and upgrading process, it's also important for you to make the new hard drive or SSD ready in advance. Also, a reliable disk cloning tool like Qiling Backup also plays a vital role.

Free Download

If you still have some questions on this issue, check answers in the FAQs section as listed below.

FAQs About Cloning Hard Drive

1. How Long Does It Take to Clone a Hard Drive

The time of cloning a hard drive highly depends on the used space of your original disk. Let's take a 500GB hard drive as an example.

Normally, it would take one and half an hour to complete with a steady cloning speed at 100Mb/s. And if the speed is 50Mb/s. it would take about 3-4 hours.

If you turn to Qiling Backup for the disk cloning and upgrading operation, it would complete the operation within 1 hour.

2. Any Risks While Cloning a Hard Drive

Usually, cloning a hard drive doesn't contain many risks. It's highly secure and safe for both data and OS on your computer hard drive.

The only risk that you should be aware of is to let the cloning process complete. In a word, don't disturb the cloning once you start it.

Also, you should guarantee stable power supply to your computer and the hard drive.

3. How to Deal with the Old Disk after Cloning a Hard Drive

If you don't know how to deal with your old hard drive after replacing it with the new disk, here are some tips that you can follow:

Clean and wipe the hard drive, sell it.

Delete all partitions and repartition the hard drive as a secondary data drive.