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How to clone the drive in your Windows computer

Are you running out of free space on the drive in your computer? Or are you thinking about getting a faster drive for it? If so, cloning the drive in your computer might be just the answer, and here is how to do it.

How to clone the drive in your computer

Note: Drive cloning is a procedure that computer technicians perform regularly. If you do not feel comfortable doing any of the following procedures, please contact a local computer service company like Geeks in Phoenix.

When installing a new drive in your computer, you have two (2) options; you can perform a fresh installation of the operating system and all the programs. Or you can clone the current drive to the new one and preserve the installed operating system and programs.

Since many people do not remember how they installed their programs or where the installation media/software keys may be, cloning their existing drive is the best option. The complexity of cloning a drive depends on the type of drive, the form factor, and the current and new drive interface.

There are several types of drives; the most popular are SSD (Solid State Drive), HDD (Hard Disk Drive), and SSHD (Solid State Hybrid Drive). There are also several different drive interfaces; the most popular are SATA (7 pin connection cable) and M.2 (keyed socket). HDDs and SSHDs use a SATA interface; SSDs can use either SATA or M.2.

Different types of computer drives

There are several different form factors (physical size) of drives; HDDs and SSHDs come in 3.5" and 2.5" (width), SSDs come in 2.5" (width) when using a SATA interface, and 30 to 110 MM (length) when using an M.2 interface. Drives that come in 2.5" form factor can also have different heights (thicker); 9.5 MM is standard, and 7 MM is used in ultra-thin laptops.

 
Drive types
 
SSD
HDD
SSHD
Form Factor
     
3.5"
 
X
X
2.5"
X
X
X
M.2
X
   
Interface
     
SATA
X
X
X
M.2
X
   

If you are upgrading a laptop drive (2.5"), check with the manufacturer on what size is recommended. If you are upgrading an M.2 drive, check with the manufacturer (system/motherboard) on what interface (SATA 3, AHCI, or NVMe), key notch (B, M, or B & M) and length is supported.

Now the first thing you need to do is find out the model number of your current drive. Once you have the model number, you can search on Google and get all of its specifications. You can find the model number in Computer Management.

How to open Computer Management

  1. Left-click on the Start Windows logo menu
  2. Scroll down the list of programs and left-click on Windows Administrative Tools
  3. Left-click on Computer Management

or

  1. Right-click on the Start Windows logo menu to bring up the Power Users menu
  2. Left-click on Computer Management

Once you have the Computer Management console open, left-click on Disk Management and locate the disk that has the partition with the drive letter C:. Right-click the disk number (usually Disk 0) select Properties from the context menu. On the General tab, you will find the drive model number.

Once you have your existing drive specifications, it is time to decide on a replacement drive. Are you going to replace it with one that has the same form factor and interface or not. Your decision will determine how you clone your drive, and there are two (2) ways to do it.

Now it is just a matter of getting another drive with the same data capacity as your existing drive. You can get one with a smaller capacity, but you would have to shrink the partition(s) on the drive before cloning it. You can get one with a larger capacity (recommended), but you may or may not have to manually expand the partition(s) after you are done. Some drive manufacturers (WD, Seagate, and Samsung) cloning software will automatically do that.

There are two (2) different scenarios, upgrading your existing drive to the same form factor and interface or upgrading your existing drive from SATA to M.2. Doing an upgrade that involves just SATA drives is relatively simple; M.2 drives are a bit more complicated.

If you decide to upgrade to an M.2 drive, you will need to find out what type of M.2 drive your motherboard can support before purchasing it. You need to find out the local interface (SATA3, AHCI, or NVMe), width/length, and keying. You will also need the hardware (standoff and screw) to mount it to the motherboard.

SATA drives can be connected to your computer using internal SATA and power cables (desktop) or external USB docking stations / external drive enclosures (desktop or laptop). Since M.2 drives use sockets with PCI-e buses for power and transferring data, they have to be directly connected to the motherboard.

There are M.2 to USB adapters, but they can be expensive and only support specific key notches. For cloning SATA to M.2 or M.2 to M.2, I recommend using the drive-to-image method (see below).

  • Drive-to-drive. This is the method you would want to use if you are cloning your existing drive to another drive with the same interface (SATA to SATA).
  • Drive-to-image. This is the method you would want to use if you are cloning your existing drive to a different interface (SATA to M.2)

Drive cloning software

A few drive manufacturers have the software you can download to clone your drive, but at least one of the drives (source or destination) has to be one of theirs. And a few of the programs you can use to create bootable media. Here are a few of the drive cloning programs available.

Western Digital - Acronis True Image

Seagate - DiskWizard

Samsung - Data Migration

Ultimate Boot CD (bootable media)

R-Drive Image

Hardware required for drive cloning

  • Docking station
  • External hard drive
  • Flash drive for creating bootable media

Different hardware you might use when cloning a computer drive

Drive-to-drive cloning

This is probably the easiest way to clone a drive. The first thing you have to do is install the cloning software on the computer with the source drive you want to clone. If you decide to use the UBCD, you will need to create the bootable media.

Then connect the destination drive by either attaching using a docking station / external case (laptop or desktop) or shutting down the computer and installing it (desktop).

Once you have both drives attached to the computer, you can boot the system normally or use bootable media and start the drive cloning program. Follow the software instructions and be ready to shut down your computer as soon as the software completes cloning the drive.

You will need to remove or detach the source drive from the computer, as both of the drives will have the same boot signature. If you cloned a SATA drive to another SATA drive, connect the destination drive to the connection that the source drive was on. You should be ready to boot your computer on the new drive.

Drive-to-image cloning

This procedure does require a few more steps to complete, but it does also have more options. One of the advantages of this type of drive cloning is changing your computer's primary drive interface. The disadvantage is you may have to expand/recreate partitions manually.

The first thing you need to do is install the cloning software on your computer and then create bootable media using it. You will need the bootable media to restore the disk image or disk backup to the new drive.

The next thing you will need to do is use that same cloning program to create a drive image / drive backup of your primary (boot) drive to an external hard drive. Once that is complete, safely remove the external hard drive from your computer and shut it down.

Now that your computer is turned off, uninstall the existing drive and install the new drive. Once the new drive is in place, boot your computer using the bootable media you created and proceed to restore the disk image / disk backup to the new drive.

If the new drive is larger than the old one, the cloning software may prompt you to expand the primary partition. If it does, let the software do it. If not, you may have to expand it manually using Disk Management inside of Windows.

Windows creates a hidden recovery partition right behind the primary partition. If the cloning software does not put that hidden partition at the end of the new drive and expand the primary partition, you will have to do it manually.

I use R-Drive Image for drive cloning, and it allows me to restore a complete drive image or individual partitions. When I run into the hidden recovery partition, I usually will restore all of the partitions except for the last one, the hidden recovery partition.

Since the system does not require the hidden recovery partition to operate, I boot it up on the new drive and expand the primary partition using Disk Management to fill up almost all of the remaining free space.

I leave a little more than enough free space to restore the hidden recovery partition. I then boot the computer back up on the R-Drive bootable media and restore the hidden recovery partition into the remaining free space.

For more information on upgrading computer drives. click on the following links.

How to upgrade the hard drive in your computer

How to upgrade your computers hard disk drive to a solid state drive

How to upgrade the drive in your computer

Updated August 27, 2024

Are you running out of free space on your computer's drive? You've uninstalled unused programs and cleaned it up, but still cannot free up any more room? Doing computer repair, I've seen this often and have personally run out of space more times than I care to remember. Here's how to upgrade the drive in your computer.

Changing out a drive may sound scary, but it's not. If your existing drive is healthy and you have a good backup of the data on it, you should be good to go. The procedure is the same for desktop computers and laptops, with slight differences due to the form factor (physical size).

Before proceeding to clone your existing drive, it is highly recommended that you turn off any drive encryption, such as BitLocker. Once you have successfully cloned your drive, you can turn back on the drive encryption.

How to turn off BitLocker drive encryption

Three different drives side-by-side
Three different drives side-by-side

There are two (2) types of drives, SSD (Solid State Drive) and HDD (Hard Disk Drive), two (2) different types of drive interfaces, SATA (7 pin connection cable) and PCI-Express (59-66 notched pins), and three (3) different form factors (physical size) of drives; 3.5" and 2.5" (the dimension relates to the width of the drive) and M.2 (width 22 MM / length varies between 16 - 110 MM). SSDs and HDDs come in 3.5" and 2.5" sizes; SSDs come in the 2.5" and M.2 form factor. Laptops use the 2.5" / M.2 form factor, and desktop computers can use either size.

If you plan on using a 2.5" drive in a desktop computer, you may have to use 2.5" to 3.5" adapter brackets. Also, if you are installing a 2.5" SSD into a laptop, check the physical dimensions first. Some SSDs are taller (thicker) than standard 2.5" HDDs and may not fit into a laptop. And if you are planning on using an M.2 drive that has a heatsink in a laptop, check to make sure that you have enough space (height), as most laptops do not have room for the additional height (thickness) to accommodate an M.2 drive with a heatsink attached.

View of hard drive properties inside of Disk Management
View of drive properties inside of Disk Management

The next thing to do is find out what you have for an existing drive using Disk Management. Right-click on the Start Windows logo key button to bring up the Power User menu, then left-click on Disk Management. Find the disk you want to upgrade, right-click on the disk name (Disk 0, Disk 1, etc.), and select Properties. On the General tab, you will find the model number of that drive. Do a Google search for it and find the specifications (form factor, data capacity, and interface). Now, it's just a matter of getting a new drive that matches the form factor and interface you want to use. Remember that your new drive's data capacity has to be equal to or larger than your existing drive.

If your existing drive is an HDD, the first thing to do is to check the current drive for errors. Running a Checkdisk will find any errors that might prevent the successful cloning of the drive.

Running Checkdisk in Windows 11

Running Checkdisk in Windows 10

If errors are found on the existing drive, you may be unable to use the new drive's manufacturer's software. In this case, you will have to use third-party software like R-Drive that can ignore read errors.

Two ways to clone a hard drive

Drive-to-drive cloning

Drive-to-drive is the easiest to do, and a few drive manufacturers (Western Digital, Seagate, etc.) have free utilities to do this. There are also a few free disk cloning utilities out there. Check out the UBCD; it has a few. All you have to do is turn off your computer and attach the new drive internally using a SATA or PCI-e port or externally using a docking station or external USB enclosure. If your system is a desktop computer, consult the manufacturer's documentation on how to do this. If it's a laptop, you will have to attach it using either a USB adapter or inside of an external case.

A laptop hard drive connected to a USB adapter
A laptop drive connected to a USB adapter

If you plan on reusing your existing laptop drive, an external case might be the way to go. That way, when you're done, you can put your current drive into it, reformat it, and use it as an external drive for storage.

Once the new drive is ready, start your computer, install the manufacturer's software, and start the disk clone. If you're installing a larger drive, always remember to check and make sure that the new free space is going to partition you want to expand. Once done, just power off the computer and change the drives out. If your system is a laptop, consult the manufacturer's documentation on how to change out the drive. When you clone a drive, you copy everything, including the MFT (Master File Table). Run a Checkdisk to make sure everything copied over correctly.

Drive-to-image / image-to-drive cloning

Drive-to-image / image-to-drive is a bit harder, but it has an advantage: a full disk backup. There are a few third-party software programs that can expand your current drive partitions to fit a larger capacity drive. If the drive you want to clone has the same capacity but is just a different type, then you can always use Windows Backup.

Windows 11 Backup

Windows 10 Backup

How to create a Windows Recovery Drive (used for restoring Windows Backup images)

This two-step process requires a USB flash drive (16GB or larger) and a USB storage drive (the same capacity as your existing drive). The process is the same as drive-to-drive, but instead of cloning to the new drive, you create a file containing an image of the existing hard drive on a USB storage drive. I prefer using a portable (2.5") external drive, as they don't require any additional source of power (AC adapter).

The first step is to install the cloning software on your existing drive and use it to create an image of your existing drive to the USB storage drive. Once you have created an image of your drive to a USB storage drive, you must make the bootable USB flash drive using the cloning software. After you create the bootable USB flash drive, it's time to start cloning the drive.

Once you have created the drive image and bootable USB drive, you can shut down your computer and change out the drives. Consult the manufacturer's documentation on how to change out the drive. Then you boot your computer back up on the bootable USB drive you created, reconnect your external drive, and restore the drive from the image file.

If you're installing a larger drive, always remember to check and make sure that the new free space is going to partition you want to expand. Once done, just shut the system down, remove the boot disk, and start it back up. When you clone a drive, you copy everything, including the Master File Table, so run a Checkdisk to verify that all of the data is in good working condition.

For more information on upgrading computer drives, click on the following links.

How to clone the drive in your Windows computer

How to upgrade your computers hard disk drive to a solid state drive

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