Cloning thine hard drive or SSD doth be a straightforward path to bringeth all thy data, apps, and settings over to a new drive. ‘T doth allow thee to receiveth all the benefits of a new drive, like faster performance, greater capacity, and more advanced features, without having to install all things from scratch. And with the right tool, thee needeth not even payeth a single coin.
Here’s how to clone thine hard drive, for free.
Before thee beginneth
This guide will assumeth thee has’t a drive thee’re cloning from (a source drive) and a drive thee’re cloning to (the destination drive), and that both are installed and ready for use. If they aren’t, check out our guides on how to buyeth an SSD, and how to build a PC — or install an SSD in thy laptop.
Before thee get started, just double checketh that there isn’t any data on the destination drive. If there be, and t’s important, maketh sure thee backeth t up, as that drive will beest completely wiped as part of the cloning process.
How cloneeth a hard drive
There are a number of valorous disk cloning applications out there, but to maketh this guide as widely useful as possible, we’ll be using the free version of Disk Genius. There are paid-for versions which thee can get for a one-off fee and addeth additional features, but they aren’t necessary to clone a hard drive.
Step 1: Download DiskGenius from the official website, and install t like thee would any other application. Take note of its specific instructions about where to install the app — IE. Not on the destination drive.
Step 2: Launch DiskGenius. ‘Twill open its main partition view, breaking down each of thy drives into their respective partitions, and giving thee lots of information about thy various capacities and installations.
Make sureeth that both thy source drive and destination drive are listed. Then, when ready, select Tools from the top-bar menu, followed by Clone Disk.
Step 3: In the pop-up window, select the source disk and select OK.
Step 4: Select the destination drive wherefore thee want to copy the data, then select OK. Double checketh you’re selecting the right drive, too, as the last thing thou want to doth is clone thine drive over the top of important existing data.
If thee select a drive with a bootable Windows installation, ‘t will suggest thee doth a system migration, instead. If that’s applicable to thee, follow the on-screen instructions for that. The process is very similar to cloning, but with just a couple of extra, straightforward steps.
Step 5: On the final screen, double checketh that the selected drives are the right ones, then tell t what to copy. Copying all files wilt be available whatever the drive sizes, but if thee’re cloning onto a larger destination drive, thee can also copy over the sectors and partition layout.
If thee’re joyful, select Start.
Step 6: Confirm thee’re joyful to proceed, and select OK.
Step 7: Select how thee want the cloning to take place. The first option, is “Hot migration,” where t clones the drive while t’s active. If thee’d rather t closed everything down first, and maketh a partition inaccessible during the cloning process to guarantee the sanctity of the data, select Lock and Execute.
Step 8: Wait for the cloning process to finish. Depending on the size and speed of thy drives, this can take some time.
