How to clone a hard drive - EASY step by step walk-thru!

if you were to ask a hundred different computer technicians what is the perfect backup solution you're probably going to get about a 100 different answers some will just say to manually backup your personal files to a flash drive or an external hard drive some will say to use a backup program to automate that backup some will say to use a hands-free cloud storage software like Microsoft One drive or Carbonite to automate the process some will say to just create a Windows image file and back that up to a portable hard drive some will even tell you to set up a Nas server with multiple hard drive redundancy so which one is right well they're all right because they all focus on the most important thing which is backing up your personal files but backing up can mean different things to different people so that's what I want to touch on today if you just make backup copies of your personal files that's great and you absolutely should using whichever method works for you but the real question is when Windows crashes or you have a hardware failure what is the level of Hassle and inconvenience that you are willing to go through to get your computer back up and running how long will that process take and do you even have the necessary Tools in order to fix your computer when that does happen now out of those 100 technicians you ask my money says that the vast majority of them will all agree that creating some type of clone of your existing computer is probably one of the smartest simplest and most efficient ways to back up everything and I agree Drive cloning will not only save your bacon in the case of a Windows crash but more importantly it's a guaranteed file backup and in the worst case scenario where you actually have a hard drive dri failure you will be so glad that you actually did it in my opinion cloning your hard drive is probably the smartest way to go for overall peace of mind but it does have a couple drawbacks and I'll touch on those later in the video I just think it's important that you have all the information that you need to know to decide if cloning your computer is the best backup solution for you so what is Drive cloning anyway well to make it as simple as possible what the process entails is exactly what it sounds like you're just going to take the existing hard drive inside your computer and then you're just going to make an exact copy of it pretty cool huh now in the event of a major computer problem you can just grab that duplicate Drive install on your computer turn it on and you're back in business no software installation no driver updates you're ready to go for that reason it is a favorite amongst Tech enthusiasts for its Simplicity I can already hear you saying but you say it's easy but I'm not that computer smart but it's okay cuz today I'm going to show you exactly how step by step to clone your hard drive and just like with any other computer process once you've done a couple times I guarantee you're going to realize it's not that hard to do so before we get started there are a couple things that you're going to need the very first thing is you're going to need the software that you use to actually create the cloned disc now for this demonstration I'm going to use a program called macrium free which is very popular amongst Tech enthusiasts the new version of macum is not free but there are older versions available that work great I'll link those down below in the description for you now the second thing you're going to need is the actual physical drive itself similar to the one that's already inside your computer now it doesn't have to be the same exact drive or even the same type of drive but I'll get into that a little bit later the most important thing is that the drive that you're going to use for a Target needs to be at least the same size or larger than the drive you have in your computer now remember this is for strictly making a backup copy of your existing computer so the drive doesn't have to be the fanciest most expensive Drive ever it just needs to be large enough to make an exact duplicate of the drive you have stay tuned to the end and I'll make sure I answer as many questions as I can that you might have before you get started now what I'm going to show you first is the actual cloning process this is not going to change depending on whether you have a laptop or a desktop the cloning process is the same so we're going to watch this first and then I'm going to go through each individual type of possible configuration that you might have there are all types of different configurations there's desktops there's laptops there's all-in-one computers some of these have extra ports for additional hard drives some do not so once you see how the actual cloning process works then you can skip ahead to the actual scenario that matches your configuration I'll put clearly labeled chapter markers down below so you can just go right to the configuration that you need that matches your setup so with that said let's grab some coffee and let's learn how to clone a hard drive cloning a hard drive is at its core very simple you have a source drive and a Target Drive The Source Drive is the drive inside your computer right now the target Drive is going to be the exact duplicate of your Source Drive the only thing you absolutely need to know before you get started is which Drive is the target drive if you have a brand new hard drive straight out of the box it's going to be unformatted even though you don't technically need to format the drive to clone it I like to do that because then it assigns a drive letter which makes it easily identifiable as the target Drive the last thing I want to do is overwrite my good drive with a blank drive so it's always important to make sure that you have the correct Drive letters when you're doing a clone there's several free ways to partition any hard drive in Windows you can search the toolbar for dis management and then click create and format hard disk partitions that will bring up a list of your drives and then you can simply select the unallocated Drive which will be your brand new hard drive this is going to be the target drive so we want to just right click on that drive select new simple volume click next next again and then choose a drive letter I always choose Drive t for Target that way it makes it easily identifiable and on the next screen for volume label I even write Target click next then finish when you're done you'll get a popup here and as you can see there is Drive T which is my target drive so at this point whether you've plugged the drive into your computer directly or you've used an external drive reader you now have a second Drive labeled t for Target now what we have to do is open the cloning software and begin the process so I've already got the software installed on my computer but if you want to follow along all you got to do do is open Google and type in macrium free followed by the words major Geeks and hit enter the first link that comes up here as you can see is to the major Geeks website which is a trusted website amongst Tech professionals and you'll see here you have the option to download the free version 32-bit or 64-bit if you're not sure if you're on 64-bit go ahead and use the 32-bit that's fine most modern machines are 64-bit so just go ahead and click on this link right here to start the install once the program downloads go ahead and open it and install it I've got it installed here on my computer so I'm going to go ahead and open reflect now the most important thing here and if you remember what I told you earlier is you need to always know what your Source Drive is and what your target Drive is the source drive on all modern Windows PCS is going to be Drive C now I've got a lot of drives in here you probably only have one drive but as you can see see here dis 6 has the windows C partition on it so I know that this is my source drive so I can just go right below here and click clone this this screen will pop up it says select the disc to clone to so click that if you remember we labeled our blank Target drive drive letter T so just scroll down until you see that drive and select it and then just confirm again I want to take the partitions on this primary source Drive which is my regular operating system and then I want to duplicate it to this blank Drive labeled T and click next you can click next again to skip the schedule this is just a summary of what you want to do go ahead and click finish this next box what do you want to do now I'm just going to uncheck the save as a backup file that's something you would do if you frequently clone you could just easily save this as a oneclick backup up we'll get to that in another video I'm just going to skip this here and select run this backup now click okay and then you'll get a confirmation are you sure you want to do this check this box all target volume data will be overwritten confirm to proceed click continue just like that you're cloning okay so after about 5 hours 52 minutes the one tbyte clone is done so I'm just going to click okay I'm going to go ahead and click close software is going to analyze the new drives with the new Partition structures and as you can see this is my original Drive disc 6 with my Windows installation on it here's the drive that was formerly the T Drive the target drive with an exact copy of that drive going to go ahead and close macam And now when I look at my Windows File Explorer here is my original Drive split into two partitions here is the Clone Drive there's the operating system and the duplicate of my second partition so so at this point the drive has been cloned now all I have to do is insert it into my PC and I'm ready to go now that You' learned how the cloning process actually works let's go through the different types of computer configurations you might have the first and most popular machine type is the standard desktop computer with extra cables and connections so that you can easily add a second hard drive with these types of systems you just simply plug in your secondary hard drive turn on your computer and then you can start the cloning process the second type of computer is going to be the standard desktop computer but has no extra cables or connections for a secondary hard drive usually these are smaller and thinner machines or even mini PCS in cases like that you're going to need to purchase an external drive reader that you can put the hard drive into plug it up to your computer via USB and now you have access to that Target Drive these also come really in handy if you have other hard drives laying around or you just want to add extra storage to your computer you can leave it connected and always have a secondary hard drive so it does serve dual purposes now next on the list is a laptop most most modern laptops are only going to have one Drive Port available but if you have a secondary Port then you can plug in a secondary hard drive into your laptop now that's great but the problem with that is that in order to do all this you have to disassemble your laptop and a lot of people don't know how to do that you can find videos on YouTube for sure but it is a pain and again this is probably a much better solution because it literally just plugs in with USB and you're ready to go but when you do clone the drive you're still going to have to take the laptop apart to swap those drives so it really depends on your ability to take the computer apart again tons of videos on YouTube a lot of laptops are pretty easy to get apart but some are more complicated than others now regardless of Which laptop you have if you're just creating the Clone to have an emergency backup then you don't need to disassemble it the only time you'll need to take the laptop apart is if you have a drive failure and you need to swap those drives otherwise you can just plug up the external driver reader and always create a backup copy now last on the list is an all-in-one computer now now if you're only creating the Clone so you have an emergency backup of your drive you don't need to disassemble it so what I would definitely recommend is get an external drive reader and create that clone and that way you always have it handy and the only time you actually need to take the thing apart is if in fact you have a drive failure very much like a laptop there's really no reason to take the all-in-one apart only if you're actually upgrading just like a laptop get you one of these and you're good to go now as a reminder I'll put links to all the products that I recommend down in the description for you if you'd like a personalized recommendation based on your needs hit me up in the comments and I'll do what I can to help you and now it's on to my favorite part of the video question and answer time question number one are there any downsides to cloning my drive versus other backup methods great question and the answer is actually yes now even though cloning your drive is arguably the best way to back up the problem is is that when you clone your drive you're making an exact snapshot of your computer at that moment so if you clone the drive and for example in install a bunch of Windows updates or copy a bunch of photos to your computer or upgrade your operating system your clone drive is not going to include any of that so what you always want to do is make sure that you clone your drive before making any big system changes that way if there's a problem you can always go back to that exact copy that you had once you've made those changes and everything's okay then I would recommend cloning the drive again so you have an updated copy of your drive question number two can I just use a USB flash drive or an external hard drive as my clone Drive yes you can but here's the problem the whole purpose of cloning your drive is so that you can easily swap one drive for the other if you clone your drive to a portable drive or a USB flash drive you're really not going to be able to boot or run your entire operating system off that drive now is it possible yes it's likely going to be slow and it kind of defeats the whole purpose of cloning your drive at bare minimum you're still going to have backups of all your your data so as long as you don't plan on using that as your actual drive if you have a drive failure then yeah you could absolutely do that but what I would recommend is go with a drive that you can actually swap directly one for one with the drive you have inside your computer question number three how long does it take to actually clone your hard drive well it depends on your PC performance you can expect it to take at least 60 Minutes upwards of several hours in my case in this video mine took over 5 hours but it also had a lot of data multiple partitions all kinds of stuff so it really just depends the best thing to do is to start the Clone before you go to bed and it'll be done by the time you get up in the morning question number four can I clone my Linux or Mac OS absolutely while this video was designed as a guide for Windows users there are software programs out there that allow you to do the same thing for both Linux and Mac OS you just need to look around for the programs that work for your specific operating system next question how do I safely store my backup clone Drive great question in my case I actually store store my clone drive inside a bubble wrap container from an old hard drive I bought and then I put that inside my safe you want to try to keep it away from the elements as much as possible the better sealed it is the safer you're going to be when you need that drive next question is how often should I clone M Drive really once you have a working Drive clone unless something dramatically changes on your end as I said before with a Windows update or a new piece of software that you've configured or you put a zillion photos on your computer for the most part if nothing's changed then you don't need to clone weekly or even monthly wait until something significant happens and then create a new clone so that you'll always have the latest version of your existing computer software next question is can I use different software than what you used absolutely I actually prefer Mac gum free it's a very simple easy to use program but there are dozens of other free programs out there that you can download the only thing you really need to know is what's my source Drive what's my target Drive everything else is easy next question is how do I find out if my laptop or all-in-one has extra data ports for me to connect the second Drive well there is always the option to disassemble which if you are not experienced with that I wouldn't necessarily recommend it however you can also look up the specs on your computer from the manufacturer's website and that will generally tell you next question are there better ways to back up my computer but first we need to Define better as stated before it depends on your needs if you already have your existing files backed up and you have the windows in install ation software that you need to reinstall Windows and you don't mind going through the process of starting over from scratch also reinstalling all your programs reconfiguring all your settings all of that seems logical for you then yeah you could just continue doing back up the way you are the advantage of a drive clone is that it does all of that for you with one piece of software and a few hours of your time but forget about Windows and system crashes for a second what happens if your actual hard drive crashes in that case having a clone that you could literally pop into a computer turn it on and you're back in business is worth its weight and gold either way if your drive crashes you're still going to need to go buy a new hard drive so ideally what you want is to have a clone and then maybe a USB backup for those files that you have put on the computer since your last clone that way you've already got the hard drive that you need if in fact that happens you can pop it in copy the new files reclone it and you're back in business again next question is can I take my clone drive and insert it into a new computer and use it well maybe I've tried this many times before with older systems and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't see what happens is as soon as you install that drive which has an existing copy of Windows on it and turn it on that Windows is going to recognize all the new Hardware in this other machine then it has to go out and find drivers for all those components now sometimes you'll run into an issue where you'll get a blue screen as soon as Windows tries to load because the drivers that are pre-loaded on that clone Drive don't match the the hardware that you're putting that drive into that's where you can run into a problem the good news is you can try it it can't hurt it's either going to boot and install drivers or it's not going to boot so give it a shot next question is do I need to take my laptop or all-in-one computer apart in order to clone the drive I touched on this earlier in the video about depends on what you're cloning for so if you're upgrading from a mechanical hard drive to an SSD for example then yes you would need to clone the drive and then get inside the computer and swap them out if you're just creating a clone for backup purposes then you can just use one of these and keep that drive handy for when that happens and then at that point you would need to take the computer apart or pay somebody to take it apart and pop in the Clone drive for you man that was awesome this stuff's better than Mr Beast how can I thank you just kidding not a real question but you already have if you've made it this far into the video your watch time really does matter if you like the content I make make sure you click like And subscribe and share it with somebody you think might enjoy it if you want to give me extra support you can click the link down below to give me a super thanks or you can buy something for me off my Amazon shopping list none of that's necessary I provide this information for you for free and I appreciate you making it this far in all seriousness I hope this video was super helpful for you and gave you not only the knowledge but the confidence to know that you can safely clone your hard drive and always have a backup at the ready in case something happens so what are your thoughts on this whole process I always look forward to answering comments from viewers so make sure you leave a comment below and either let me answer a question for you guide you in the right direction or congratulate you on cloning your drive and feel free to ask any questions that I didn't cover today if you're considering upgrading your hard drive going from mechanical to digital is absolutely the way to go and cloning is the simplest way to do that but how much faster is a digital drive versus a mechanical Drive I answer that question for you right here

Channel: Ask Your Computer Guy

Views: 198,498

Keywords: how to clone hard drive, how to clone ssd, how to copy hard drive, macrium reflect, how to copy ssd, cloning nvme to nvme, macrium reflect free, how to clone nvme ssd laptop, how to clone ssd to m.2, how to clone windows, cloning hard drive, how to clone windows 10, how to clone hard drive in windows 10, how to clone hard drive to usb flash drive, how to clone hard drive to new hard drive, how to clone hard drive to ssd using macrium reflect, how to clone ssd from hdd

Id: -89EcTjzl4M

Length: 18min 44sec (1124 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 07 2023