Clone Hard Drive in Windows Server 2003, 2016, 2019, 2022 without Reinstalling

Why Clone Hard Drive in Windows Server 2003?

Hard drive cloning becomes common during computer upgrading. Generally speaking, you may want to clone Server 2003 hard drive in following cases.

1. Perform OS migration or data transferring. You can backup c drive in Windows Server 2003 and restore it later if you plan to transfer C drive only. However, you’ll skip the step of restoring if you just clone the drive. All installed applications, software, games, etc. will be cloned to target disk without reinstalling them one by one.

2. Replace old hard drive with a new one. The hard drive was pretty good when you bought it, but it got slower and slower with the increasing data you store. Now you would think about upgrading it with a speedier one, SSD or a bigger hard drive, for instance. Therefore, you need to clone Server 2003 to new hard drive.

3. Making duplication of the disk. As time goes by, high technology brings much convenience to people’s daily life. However, it produces data losing risk at the same time. It is a must-do event to do a complete full backup by cloning hard drive.

To make a long story short, there are many conditions forcing you to consider hard drive cloning. In that way, choosing an efficient and integrated hard drive cloning software is an urgent affair. Then, what do you need in cloning a Server hard drive?

Best Server 2003 Clone Software

AOMEI Backupper Server Edition is a sophisticated hardware equipped with backup, restore, clone and more advanced utilities for data protection and disaster recovery management. Above all, you can perform hard drive clone without interrupting running programs in your Server (This feature is called “Live Disk Cloning” or “Hot Clone”).

In addition, you can clone large drive to smaller disk in Server 2003 as long as the smaller disk can fit the data in the large drive. Cloning hard drive to SSD is also supportable. And this software will perform SSD alignment to improve its reading and writing speed.

By the way, this program also supports Windows Server 2003, 2008, 2012 (R2), and SBS 2003, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2019, 2022 (both 32 and 64 bit), as well as Windows 10/11, Windows 8.1/8, Windows 7, Vista, and Windows XP. Therefore, you can clone hard drive in Windows Home Server as well.

How to clone Windows 2003 Server hard drive

Before you start, you can download 30-day free trial of AOMEI Backupper and have a try.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Backupper. You will catch sight of the main interface. Choose “Clone” on the left toolbar, and click “Disk Clone”.

Step 2. Select the source disk you want to clone (here is Disk 0). Then click “Next” to continue.

Step 3. Get one disk to be the target hard drive (here is Disk 1), and click “Next”. Note that all the data on the destination disk will be covered. If any important information existed, please make a backup before it starts.

Step 4. This window is a summary of all your operations. You can do some changes by clicking “Back”. Otherwise, click “Start Clone” to execute those operations.

Tips:

Pay attention to lower left options in the red frame. There is something you need to know.

• This program clones existing data which is used space only on the disk in a default situation. If you want to clone deleted data, you might want to choose “Sector by sector clone”. This option offers every sector cloning, whether it is used or not.

• It is recommended for check “SSD Alignment” if the destination disk is solid state drive. This function could improve the speed of reading and writing as well service time of SSD.

• If you hit “Edit Partitions”, there are three options available:

>>Copy without re-sizing partitions: Do not do any changes.

>>Fit partition to entire disk: The destination disk partitions will be automatically re-sized to the entire disk, appropriate for the disk size.

>>Edit partitions on this disk: Manually adjust the partition size and location by dragging a slider bar.

One more thing, if the destination hard drive is a dynamic disk, you have to convert it to basic disk in advance. You see, with a few simple clicks, you could clone hard drive in Windows server 2003. If you want to clone Server 2003 to new hardware on different machine, please use the Dissimilar Hardware Restore feature of AOMEI Backupper Server.

More helpful features, such as system backup, differential backup, incremental backup and schedule backup are embedded in AOMEI Backupper waiting for you to explore.