Cloning your hard drive or SSD is a straightforward way to bring all your data, apps, and settings over to a new drive. That lets you get all the benefits of a new drive, like faster performance, greater capacity, and more advanced features, without having to install everything from scratch. And with the right tool, you don't even need to pay anything.
Here's how to clone your hard drive, for free.
Before you begin
This guide will assume you have a drive you're cloning from (a source drive) and a drive you're cloning to (the destination drive), and that both are installed and ready for use. If they aren't, check out our guides on how to buy an SSD, and how to build a PC -- or install an SSD in your laptop.
Before you get started, just double check that there isn't any data on the destination drive. If there is, and it's important, make sure you back it up, as that drive will be completely wiped as part of the cloning process.
How clone a hard drive
There are a number of great disk cloning applications out there, but to make this guide as widely useful as possible, we'll be using the free version of Disk Genius. There are paid-for versions which you can get for a one-off fee and add additional features, but they aren't necessary to clone a hard drive.
Step 1: Download DiskGenius from the official website, and install it like you would any other application. Take note of its specific instructions about where to install the app -- IE. Not on the destination drive.
Step 2: Launch DiskGenius. It'll open its main partition view, breaking down each of your drives into their respective partitions, and giving you lots of information about your various capacities and installations.
Make sure that both your source drive and destination drive are listed. Then, when ready, select Tools from the top-bar menu, followed by Clone Disk.
Step 3: In the pop-up window, select the source disk and select OK.
Step 4: Select the destination drive where you want to copy the data, then select OK. Double check you're selecting the right drive, too, as the last thing you want to do is clone your drive over the top of important existing data.
If you select a drive with a bootable Windows installation, it will suggest you do a system migration, instead. If that's applicable to you, follow the on-screen instructions for that. The process is very similar to cloning, but with just a couple of extra, straightforward steps.
Step 5: On the final screen, double check that the selected drives are the right ones, then tell it what to copy. Copying all files will be available whatever the drive sizes, but if you're cloning onto a larger destination drive, you can also copy over the sectors and partition layout.
If you're happy, select Start.
Step 6: Confirm you're happy to proceed, and select OK.
Step 7: Select how you want the cloning to take place. The first option, is "Hot migration," where it clones the drive while it's active. If you'd rather it closed everything down first, and makes a partition inaccessible during the cloning process to guarantee the sanctity of the data, select Lock and Execute.
Step 8: Wait for the cloning process to finish. Depending on the size and speed of your drives, this can take some time.
