Best Disk to Disk Clone Freeware - AOMEI Backupper

What is Disk Clone?

Disk Clone (also called Disk Copy) is the process of creating a 1-to-1 copy of an HDD or SSD, not just its files but its operating system, partition layout, drive letter, customized settings, installed programs, personal data, etc. All contents on the original disk can be transferred to the destination disk, which enables you to boot to the operation system from the cloned drive.

Why Need Disk to Disk Cloning?

Disk cloning is very useful in many scenarios, and here are 3 common scenarios.

◑ Upgrade a disk or replace an aging disk with a fresh one. After a long period of use, the capacity of the computer will become less and less, and the speed of the computer will also be affected. In order to improve computer performance, it is a common practice to make a hard disk drive replacement or upgrade.
◑ Make a duplicate of your HDD/SSD as a backup. Sometimes, we backup folders to USB drive or other external drives in order to protect our precious data. However, this cannot keep all data and information when some unexpected disasters occur, disk to disk copy will prevent you from losing valuable data or reinstalling the system and configuration settings. You can get full data recovery in the event of a machine crash.
◑ Migrate some data to another place. In our daily life, we have some special documents or data, we don’t want to put them with others together. For the sake of ensuring the security of these data, we choose to clone them to another disk. And we can transfer them to any devices if we want to.

How to Perform Disk to Disk Clone Free in Windows 10/8/7

There is no software that can perform disk cloning in computer's own system, so if you want to perform disk to disk copy in Windows 10 or other systems, you have to use third-party software. Copying disk to disk may take you some time, it depends on the size of the disk you want to copy. However, it is much faster than installing each machine separately, especially if it involves many applications.

Speaking of the best disk to disk clone freeware, AOMEI Backupper Standard tops the list. AOMEI Backupper can backup, restore and clone your Windows system, crucial data and necessary applications in Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/XP/Vista. With its help, you can escape from the tedious work of transferring data, configuration settings, installed applications and programs to the new drive.

Next, the following graphic article will show you how the best disk to disk cloning software - AOMEI Backupper clone disk to disk step by step.

Step 1. Connect the target disk to your PC. Download free hard drive cloning software AOMEI Backupper and run it, then click Clone and Disk Clone in order.

✨ Note: The free version only supports cloning between two MBR data disks. If you want to clone MBR disks with system, or GPT disks to GPT, MBR disks to GPT, or GPT disks to MBR, please upgrade to the Pro version.

Step 2. Select Source Disk that need to be cloned.

Step 3. Select Destination Disk to clone to.

Note✍: You will be prompted the destination disk will be overwritten or deleted, so it's suggested to backup files ahead of time. If not, your data will go after cloning.

Step 4. Tick SSD Alignment to optimize the performance of the SSD if necessary (such as cloning hard drive to an SSD). Click Start Clone to execute the task. 

Notes✍:
● Before you perform disk cloning, make sure that your target disk has enough space, otherwise this operation cannot be performed.
● Disk Clone doesn’t support dynamic disks. Please use System Clone or Partition Clone options to clone a dynamic disk.

How to boot from the cloned hard drive securely?

If the cloned hard drive involves the operating system, it is suggested to restart your computer and continuously press a specific key (usually F2, F8, F12, Del) to enter BIOS Setup -> Boot, then set the cloned disk as first boot device in BIOS or replace the old hard drive with the new drive directly to boot from the cloned drive.

Conclusion

After understanding the operating steps of disk cloning via AOMEI Backupper, you may find this software can provide you with the easiest way to perform disk to disk clone free. It is such a powerful software embedded with multiple features such as Backup, Sync, Restore as well as Clone. Go for it right now!