- How To Clone One Drive To Another
- Copy Hard Drive To New Drive
- How Do I Copy My Hard Drive To Another Hard Drive
To copy files from one drive to another,follow the steps below. Browse to the location of your files you want to copy. Select the files you want to copy and then right-click and select Copy in the pop-up menu. You can also use the Ctrl + C keyboard shortcut to copy the selected files.
Step 1: Start the Disk Copying Process From the available disks, choose the hard drive you want to clone. You may choose the internal hard drive as source. Click Copy Disk from Convert Disk in the action panel or right-click on the source drive to choose the Copy feature. ① Clone Computer to Another Computer Step 1: Create a bootable disc or USB flash drive with its Media Builder that is located on the Tools page. Step 2: Go to Tools to click the Universal Restore feature. Step 3: MiniTool ShadowMaker will then automatically detect the installed. Why do you need a partition copy utility? 'I'd like to back up operating system, transfer/upgrade hard drive, move partitions, or replace an inaccessible disk with a new one. It is extremely important for me to manage the disk and keep data safe. However, the Microsoft Operating System cannot meet all of my requirements. I plan to copy my record albums directly onto my desktop hard drive. I will then copy them onto an external hard drive. I would like to copy all of the files from the first external hard drive.
Updated on October 23rd, 2020
In this instruction you can find step-by-step methods to transder data from one hard drive to another in Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP. Migrating files between hard drives is useful when you want to back up data, upgrade hard drive or migrade operating system.
Transferring data from one hard disk to another is the action to move data bewteen hard drives. You can move those you need using Copy & Paste in Windows Explorer or clone entire hard drive to anoterh disk in order to get an exact copy. When and why do you need to transfer data to another disk? Here are some reasons:
- Create a backup copy for important data. It's important to create multiple backup copies and save backup on different devices. Thus, you can restore your data even though origanal data gets lost or one of your backup disk fails. Moving files from one HDD to another is one the of commonly used backup solutions, as it is easy to complete.
- Replace old or damaged hard drive with a new one. Say, you buy a new hard drive which is larger ans faster the one you are using, then you'll want to move part or all data from old HDD to the new one so that you can replace old disk. Some times hard drive fails due to bad sectors or other physical damages, you'll have to replace it with a new disk, before which you should clone data from damaged disk to the new drive.
- Migrate operating system to a different hard drive. When you buy a new computer or want to add an SSD to your PC, you may have to reinstall operating system on the new disk. If OS installation is too complicated to you, you can rebuild OS by clone existing system to the new disk, for example, clone HDD to SSD, move data and programs to new hard drive.
Transferring data from one hard drive to another, or transfering data from PC to PC is no longer a difficult and time consuming task and many computer beginners can migrate data on their own with the help of free hard drive cloning software. Now you might be wondering which hard drive cloning software you should use. Here we recommand a free program – Eassos PartitionGuru Free. This is a versatile tool which includes various functions like data recovery, partition managenet, backup & restore, sector ediitor, repair bad sectors, etc.
Here we just list features on the backup & restore function:
- Disk cloning can be done via three mode: copy all sectors, copy all files, copy valid sectors based on file system layout.
- Image hard drive: it is able to image a hard drive so that the entire can be created as a single and sectory-by-sector image file.
- Copy sectors: you can clone specified sectors to other disk or make sectors as an image.
- Clone partition: it can clone any partitions by way of three modes thus you can get an exact partition copy.
- Image partition: backup a partition into an image file and restore partition from the image when the partition gets damaged. Both full backup and increaemtal backup are supported.
- Back up partition table: you can back up partition table for your hard drive to protect partitions from loss.
- Supported file system: FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, EXT2, EXT3 and EXT4
- Supported operating system: Windows 10 / 8.1 / 8 / 7 / Vista / XP (all editions, both 32 & 64 bit), Windows Server 2016 / 2012 / 2011 Small Business Edition / 2008 / 2008R2 / 2003
There are several methods you can follow to move or transfer data from disk to disk, but we just introduce the easiext and most common ones: Copy & Paste and disk cloning software. You can follow either instruction below to backup and copy disk in Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP.
Copy & Paste VS clone HDD. Method 1 is using Copy & Paste to move data from one location to another, which is an normal operation done by PC users. You can transfer existing files selectively on disk, as you can copy those you want to move and ignore file that are not impotant to you. The shortage of this method is that you cannot move hidden files or file stored on hidden partitions, thus operating system trasferred in this won't boot. The second method is to clone hard drive to another disk using disk cloning program, which is able to copy disk sector by sector, thus the destination disk will be exactly identical with the original drive. The disadvantage is that the target disk will be cleaned and written in files of original data, therefore, you should make sure files on destination disk have been backed up.
Method 1: Transfer data using Copy & Paste
Step 1: Connect destination hard drive to your PC, and you can access it in File Explorer. How to upload something as a pdf. Note: the hard drive you connected should be large enough to store files you are going to copy.
Step 2: Open File Explorer by double-clicking This PC from desktop. If you are using Windows 7, you should double-click Computer.
Step 3: Open one of the partitions on the source disk and select files or folders you want to move. Right-click on highlighted data and choose 'Copy' from the popped-up menu.
Step 4: Open the destination disk and navigate to the directory you want to store these files, right-click empty area and select 'Paste'. Alternately, you can press Ctrl + V keys for Paste. Wait for the Pasting process to complete and you can contiune Copying other files.
Note: It is not recommeded to choose 'Cut' in step 3, as it removes files from their location and add them to the new location. Moreover, both original location and destination disk will lost files once error happens during Cut & Paste process.
Method 2: Copy one hard to another with HDD clone software
Step 1: Connect destination disk to computer. If you want to clone hard drive to another disk sector by sector, the destination disk shouln't be smaller than source disk. The disk size here is calculated by sectors and you can view disk's total sector number on the main interface of Eassos PartitionGuru Free.
Step 2: Download, install and launch hard drive cloning software. Then you can see all storage devices connected to your PC, and make clear which one is destination disk.
Step 3: Click Tools menu and choose Clone Disk How fast can you clicker. to open clone disk wizard.
Step 4: Select source disk and click OK on the select disk window.
Step 5: Select destination hard drive and click OK. Be sure you choose correct target disk, otherwise you'll clone source disk to wrong hard drive and lose all data of target disk permanently.
Step 6: Click Start button and Eassos PartitionGuru Free starts cloning selected hard drive to another disk. Do not close the application before the cloning process finishes.
If you are planning to upgrade a larger drive or replacing hard drive on your computer due to its non-functionality, less storage space, bad sectors in the disk, virus attacks, hardware problems or any other problem, then you are doing a perfect job to prevent yourself. Upgrading to a new hard drive will not only improve the performance and efficacy of your computer but it will also boost productivity. Therefore, you will need to copy all your files from your old drive to the new one, if you do not want to miss data of old hard drive.
Changing hard drive is very easy, all you need to do is taking the old one out and plugging the new one into the same spot. But the daunting challenge is how to transfer all the existing folders and files from the old hard drive to the new one?
Tip:One of the well-known approaches is to take the back up of all your files, folders and programs existing on your old hard drive and then restore them into new hard drive. If you are Windows user, you can use the Windows Backup utility to create back up of data. But this approach is not as simple as it seems.
Methods to Transfer Data from Old Hard Drive to New Hard Drive Manually:
Follow the methods that will help you to transfer or move complete data of old hard drive to new hard drive.
Method 1: Use External Drive + Window's Built-in Tool
This method is used when you plan to install or start afresh your computer's Windows OS. For performing the method with the help of Windows Easy Transfer, you require an external hard drive for transferring complete data such as documents, photos, videos, etc. from the current hard drive on your computer.
How To Clone One Drive To Another
Now, swap the old drive with a new drive and start copying the files, data, folders that you transferred to external hard drive.
To do so follow the steps mentioned below to copy data from external hard drive to the new one.
Step 1: Click Windows button on your keyboard and type Windows Easy Transfer and launch the tool. Click Next to proceed.
Step 2: Select the attached external hard drive or USB drive as the target.
Step 3: Select No for This is My New Computer and hit the install to external hard drive. Windows will start copying your data and related settings to the external drive.
Method 2: Copy Directly from Old to New Drive
As you might have noticed that the above method is a bit longer as you have to transfer complete data of old hard drive to an external drive and then copy to new drive. If you want to skip the intermediate drive, simply connect the new and old drives together with the help of a USB-to-SATA-IDE adapter or cable, a computer or laptop hard drive enclosure that allows to hold the old drive and connect the same with the help of a USB cable. If you are using a laptop then you can opt for a hard drive upgrade kit which not only includes the enclosure but also a cloning software from the old drive to the new one.
If you take into account this method then you will have two options: First, cloning the old hard drive and secondly, copying just the data.
Copy Hard Drive To New Drive
Option 1: Cloning the Old Hard Drive:
Step 1: Connect the new hard drive to the laptop with the help of USB cable.
How Do I Copy My Hard Drive To Another Hard Drive
Step 2: Use the cloning software and clone the old hard drive onto the new hard drive.
Step 3: Now, remove the old drive and install the new drive.
Option 2: Copying just the Data:
Step 1: Place the new drive into the laptop or computer.
Step 2: Now, install Windows OS onto the new drive and other applications on the new hard drive.
Step 3: Finally, connect the old drive with the help of USB cable or enclosure and copy the data folders to the new one (for doing this you can consider using the Windows Easy Transfer utility mentioned in Method 1 above).
Use the Professional Solution for Recovery:
All the preferred and tested manual methods are listed above. Using any of the methods, you can copy all your files and data from old hard drive to new hard drive very easily. But, to perform the manual methods you should be technically sound, otherwise, you might face Windows data loss issues.
Want to avoid situations of data loss? Yes, you can with the help of Windows data recovery software to recover data from FAT and NTFS partitions which are corrupt, damaged, formatted and inaccessible. You should choose Kernel for Windows Data Recovery software, the most efficient and talk about the third-party application for recovering corrupted, deleted or damaged Windows data files, recovering accidentally formatted partitions, removable hard drives, and USB drives.
A Final Note:
Data transfer from an old hard drive to a new hard drive is a tedious task that requires deep technical expertise. Hence, we advise you to use the manual methods under the guidance of a Windows technical expert. If you have any questions and queries feel free to ask anytime.
