How to Clone Windows 7 System Partition to the Same Drive

Scenario

“Hi, I did what many others have done. I installed Win 7 partition on a partition on the same drive as XP. And XP was on C drive while Win7 was installed to F drive. I have removed XP from C drive and repaired Win7. Windows 7 boot fine.

Now, I just want to move Win 7 to the beginning of the drive but unsure how - as Acronis doesn't allow me to clone Win 7 partition to the same drive - even though its another partition. Is there any way round this? Thanks in advance”

Why clone Win 7 partition to the same drive?

In general, users are willing to clone Windows 7 to new hard drive or SSD. What if you cannot? In this case, many users choose to clone Win 7 partition to the same drive . Here we summarize some reasons below:

• Your computer only has one slot for hard drive.
• You want to move the system partition to the first partition for better performance. 
• Your Win 7 partition has bad sectors.  If it has a few bad sectors, wise cloning software allows you to clone only used sectors and skip the bad sectors automatically. 

How to clone Win 7 partition to another partition

The cloning method will delete all the data on the destination partition after cloning Win 7 partition, to prevent data loss, please backup files to external hard drive in advance.

The best backup software for Windows 7, 8, 10, and 11 like AOMEI Backupper Professional can help you. Also, it is a professional disk cloning software, which has the ability to clone system, disk and partition as you like. 

By default, it uses the Intelligent clone method to clone a disk or partition in Windows 7. In this cloning mode, it clones only used sectors and skips the bad sectors as well as empty sectors.

Besides, it will intelligently detect system partition and other boot partition (s), such as the system reserved partition on the MBR disk or the EFI system partition on the GPT disk, and select it to ensure a secure boot after cloning.

Please download AOMEI Backupper Professional to have a try! For server users, try AOMEI Backupper Server.

Here is how to clone Win 7 to another partition:

Step 1. Launch this professional disk clone software - AOMEI Backupper Professional. Select Clone and System Clone in order. It will select system partition and boot partition(s) automatically.

Step 2. Select a destination partition to store the system partition, and click Next.

Step 3. Now, on the Operation Summary window, set up the cloning settings and click Start Clone to clone Win 7 partition to the same drive.

Here are three options in the following:

• Edit Partition: It helps adjust the size of the destination partition and make full use of its disk space.  

• SSD Alignment: it is to improve the reading and writing speed of an SSD disk. Also, it can extend the SSD disk lifespan

• Sector by Sector Clone: It is a cloning method, which clone all sectors of a partition, whether it's used or not. The bad sectors are also included.

Workaround to clone Win 7 partition to SSD

Here, I am going to introduce you a different way I saw in the forum. You can try it with the detailed steps below.

Step 1. Create a backup for your first partition and delete it.

Step 2. Right-click your system partition and copy it to the first partition.

Step 3. Right-click the original system partition and delete it.

Step 4. Connect the installation disc to your computer and run Startup repair 3 times. It will repair the problem on your computer. Then, your partition is moved to the start of the disk.

Summary

It is really easy to clone win 7 partition to the same drive with the help of AOMEI Backupper Standard. And you can boot your computer successfully without any obstacles. 

If your computer is a desktop, you can choose to clone the entire disk with its Disk Clone feature and replace it with a new one. Besides, you still can choose to create a system image in Windows 7 and save it to network drive or NAS, then restore to the current disk in Windows 7.