When upgrading your storage, backing up your system, or migrating to a new PC, creating a clone of your hard drive in Windows 11 is really useful. Cloning makes an identical, bootable copy, which avoids compatibility problems.
While Windows 11 doesn’t have a built-in cloning feature, you can easily do it with third-party software. This guide will show you how to clone your hard drive using DiskGenius, a free and straightforward tool that handles disk and partition cloning, plus backup and data recovery.
Downloading and Installing Cloning Software
First, download and install DiskGenius (or another cloning tool if you prefer). DiskGenius is great because it’s easy to use and has a lot of helpful features.
- Go to the DiskGenius official website and click the ‘Free Download’ button.
- After downloading, install and open DiskGenius. You’ll see all your drives listed, with their details. Now you’re ready to clone!
Cloning Your Hard Drive
Before you start, connect the new hard drive to your computer, either internally or with a USB adapter (a USB-to-SATA adapter is handy for laptops). Make sure your system recognizes the drive and that it has enough space for all the data from your current drive.
- In DiskGenius, click ‘Tools’ at the top and choose ‘Clone Disk’.
- A ‘Clone Disk’ window will pop up. Select the drive you want to clone (usually your C drive, if it’s your system disk) and click ‘OK’.
- Select the target disk where you want the clone to be saved, and click ‘OK’. This can be another internal drive or an external one. Be sure it has enough free space!
- If your target disk is smaller, a window will appear asking which partitions to clone. Select the partitions you want to copy.
- To clone only specific partitions, go to the ‘Tools’ menu and pick ‘Clone Partition’. This is great for cloning just parts of your disk.
- Once you’ve set up the source and target, click ‘Start’ to begin cloning. DiskGenius will show a warning message; read it and proceed if everything looks right.
- Now, just wait for the cloning to finish. How long it takes depends on how much data there is and how fast your drives are. Try not to interrupt the process!
Cloning a Hard Drive with Bad Sectors
If your old drive has bad sectors, don’t worry, you can still try to clone it. DiskGenius has options to skip bad sectors and recover as much data as possible.
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Connect both the old, failing drive and the new drive to your computer.
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Open DiskGenius, go to the ‘Tools’ menu, and select ‘Copy Sectors’. This is made for drives with bad sectors.
- In the window that pops up, click ‘Source Disk’ and select the disk with bad sectors. Click ‘OK’.
- Click ‘Target Disk’ and choose the drive you want to clone to.
- Decide how you want DiskGenius to deal with bad sectors. You can skip them, copy sectors one by one, or skip larger chunks. Pick what works best for you.
- Click ‘Copy’ to start cloning sector by sector. This can take a long time, especially with lots of bad sectors or if you’re copying sectors individually.
Cloning your hard drive is a useful way to back up data, upgrade drives, and move systems. Following these steps with DiskGenius will help you create a copy of your drive, preserving your important data and settings.