How important is the information we store on our computer, a whole operating system and a series of programs that saves our hard drive and of course, we would not want to lose.
The truth is that hard disk failures are more common than you think, as í that if we do not want to see ourselves in the need to install everything again in case of an eventual inconvenience , better be cautious. Maybe you just want to replace your computer’s hard drive and you don’t want to have to install everything from scratch, in any case the information we will give you will be very useful .
Now, you may not know the utility of cloning your old hard drive, so we have decided to tell you the advantages that this entails and we will show you the process to do this without major inconvenience. In addition to tell you about the applications with which you can carry it out.
Index:
What are the benefits and advantages of cloning your old hard drive?
Cloning your hard drive can have many advantages that we may ignore. Our grandparents always said that a cautious man is worth two and we may know it or not, but having a backup hard drive with all our data identical to how we have it on our computer would make everything easier for us in case of an eventual failure, that although we do not believe it, it usually happens more than we think.
Of course, this is not the only utility of this disk cloning process. Maybe the reason you want to do it is because you plan to replace your old hard drive with a larger one and Of course you won’t want to have to install everything again .
If you want to migrate from a mechanical hard drive to an SSD, you can also use the cloning process so you don’t have to install everything again.
Steps to clone your hard drive in Windows 10
To perform the process in Windows 10 you will need an application called Partition Assistant that you can download for free from the official website. Here are the steps to follow to clone your hard drive in Windows 10.
Installing Partition Assistant
Download Partition Assistant Home Edition
Once you have downloaded the Partition Assistant installer, you must run it on your computer. Installation is usually a very simple process. The first thing will be to choose the language that in our case would be Spanish.
Then, as you go forward you will select «Next» until the process is complete. Once we have installed the program we will proceed to open it. The interface is quite simple and we will not be complicated to use it. What we will see at the beginning will be the different partitions.
Usually our Windows 10 will be in the drive «C:» and the new disk that we will use as a destination tends to vary according to the case. On the left side we will find the different options that we can execute with this software.
Start of the cloning process
To start the process, we will select the “Disk copy” option, this will present us with a couple of options so that we decide between cloning only the space used or cloning the hard disk as it is, including sectors that are empty. The most recommended option to speed up the process is the first one, then we will click on «Next».
Selection of disk to copy and destination
Now we will select the hard disk we want to clone which should be by default the drive «C:», anyway to make sure you can check the storage capacity and compare it with the disk we want to copy . You will see this by entering “Computer” in the Windows start menu.
Then we will select the destination disk, which will be to which we will migrate all the information from our old disk and click on nextNext.
Selection of modifications to the new disk
After performing the previous step a screen will appear in which we must select an option according to our needs on the modifications to be made on the destination hard disk. We will choose the one that is most appropriate in our case and click on clearlyNextly.
Once this is done a warning will appear in the next window saying that the hard disk may not boot properly, but without worrying we will click on «Next», a more time After this we will return to the initial interface and there we will be located up and to the left in the option «Apply», selecting it to start the process.
The software will warn us that we must restart the computer to complete the process and select “Proceed”.
Once the process is complete our computer will restart automatically. Done, once the computer is turned on we will have all the information on our new hard drive.
How to clone your HDD hard drive to an SSD?
As time passes, technological advances are shifting to each other and there is no exception in the case of storage disks. The Hard Drive Disk (HDD) has recently been displaced by the new Solid State Drive (SSD), to the point that the sales of the first have fallen significantly.
Surely you want to adapt to new technologies and get rid of your old mechanical disk migrating to an SSD, but with that you don’t want to lose everything you already have but would like to apply this cloning process to avoid having to install the operating system and so on again.
Well if you have the Partition Assistant tool you can clone your old HDD into an SSD without any problem, which means a significant improvement in the speed of our computer, in addition to other advantages that the SSD it has on the old mechanical disk.
Before starting the process it would be best to make a backup copy of our current hard drive, so that in case of any inconvenience we can restore it. We must also ensure that the SSD that will function as a destination has at least the same capacity as our old hard drive.
The truth is that the cloning process of an HDD disk in an SSD can be exactly the same as described above if you use Partition Assistant. Simply select the source and destination disks, choose the type of modifications we want to make, finish, apply and let the computer restart automatically. Simple, right?
You can also use other useful tools to perform the cloning process, although with Partition Assistant you can do it easily.
List of the best applications and programs to clone the hard disk
For some reason you might want an alternative to Partition Assistant to perform the hard disk cloning process, either in an HDD or in an SSD. Therefore, we will mention a series of alternatives so you can do it comfortably.
GParted
This is undoubtedly a fairly simple tool to use. Its simple interface and clarity of the options available make it possible for us to carry out our process without much difficulty. As simple as copying and pasting partitions from one disk to another. Simple, right?
Clonezilla
Clonezilla is one of the best tools to carry out our disk cloning process easily and quickly. This application may not have the most comfortable or attractive interface, but guarantees that the process is carried out correctly. The best? You can run it through a CD or USB memory without having to install the software on your computer.
EaseUS Partition Master
Without a doubt one of the options to consider when performing the cloning process, either because you want to migrate to a larger disk or because you want to replace your old mechanical hard drive with an SSD that gives your computer more speed. This tool is very simple and is quite similar to GParted, because also consists of copying and pasting partitions from one disk to another.
Macrium Reflect
Another option that you should consider when choosing a tool to carry out the process is Macrium Reflect 7 , this offers us a free version focused on the cloning process, but apart also allows you to schedule backups, among other functions.
Of course, the premium version has many other functions that can be very useful, but if our mission is only to make a copy of our hard drive we can do it without any problem from the free version .
Acronis Disk Director
This program is ideal to carry out the cloning process, added to that you can also manage the disk, creating or formatting partitions among several other functions that this tool makes available to us.
Without a doubt, any of the options presented can help us to clone our old hard drive, well because we want to have a backup in case of an eventual failure, because we want to migrate to a disk of larger or because we want to update ourselves technologically using an SSD.