How to Completely (and Properly) Clone a Hard Drive?

[GTechGeorge]

So for Christmas, I got a Seagate Barracuda Pro 4TB hard drive to replace my near-capacity Western Digital Blue 2TB hard drive. I'm probably overcomplicating things and overlooking a simple detail, but I'm not quite sure how to properly transfer all of my data off of the 2TB drive and onto the 4TB one. Luckily my operating system isn't on the WD drive and just a lot of personal files, but I've heard stories about certain programs being bound to a file directory on that hard drive and completely malfunctioning when transferred. A lot of ways that I've seen it done is that people use 3rd party software but most of the programs out there are not free, and having just spent a lot of money on upgrades, I'm not looking to spend any more. Could anyone steer me in the right direction going about this cloning process?

[Vantage9]

I have one of these:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-External-Duplicator-Function-EC-DSK2/dp/B07415KV63

 

Useful as an external plug-n-play adapter for drives as well as cloning.

[Windows7ge]

I've only found cloning software to be necessary when copying an operating system from one drive to another. So long as the new drives file tree and drive letter are identical to the old one you should have no problems just doing a copy/paste.

[GTechGeorge]

1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

I've only found cloning software to be necessary when copying an operating system from one drive to another. So long as the new drives file tree and drive letter is identical to the old one you should have no problems just doing a copy/paste.

Okay, so I feel like I know how to do most of this but I'm gonna ask anyway to be safe. I create the new disk partition for the 4TB one (not sure if it should be MBR or GPT), drag and drop the files onto the new 4TB hard drive temporarily labeled as the F: drive, make sure the D: drive is clean, remove the partition, and then switch the name of the 4TB drive to the D: drive? That's just what I think. I've never done this before so I really don't want to mess anything up especially considering my friend just fixed his computer after months from trying to move his OS to a new drive.

[seagate_surfer]

You could give DiscWizard a shot, it's our limited version of Acronis' True Image software.

[Windows7ge]

5 minutes ago, StrikerX1360 said:

Okay, so I feel like I know how to do most of this but I'm gonna ask anyway to be safe. I create the new disk partition for the 4TB one (not sure if it should be MBR or GPT), drag and drop the files onto the new 4TB hard drive temporarily labeled as the F: drive, make sure the D: drive is clean, remove the partition, and then switch the name of the 4TB drive to the D: drive? That's just what I think. I've never done this before so I really don't want to mess anything up especially considering my friend just fixed his computer after months from trying to move his OS to a new drive.

GPT is required for disks exceeding 2TB.

 

Using that method you would then have a drive with no partitions or drive letter but the 4TB would be working.

 

Best option would be to plug both drives in and let Windows give the new drive a letter. Copy all files over. Turn off computer. Remove old drive. Turn computer back on and it should assign the drive letter from the old drive to the new one. From there you're good to go. If you want to wipe the old drive you can just plug it in and it should be given a different drive letter. From there you can format it.

[ProjectBox153]

Do you have programs installed on the drive?

[GTechGeorge]

1 minute ago, Jamiec1130 said:

Do you have programs installed on the drive?

Yeah, Sony Vegas and some Steam games. Mostly just videos and pictures though.

[MEDU]

Since there are applications installed on that drive you would want to change the drive letter to match the old drive. For an easy and fast file transfer, I would use Acronis Cloning software or even the free CloneZilla. Its very easy to do. Once the data is copied over, open Disk Management and change the drive letter of the old drive to another letter, then change the new drive letter to match what the old drive used to be, that way your Steam library and applications will function properly. Once you confirm that your data is there and functional then do what you want with your old drive. If the old drive had just data not applications, using Windows Explorer to drag n drop or copy paste would be more than fine.

http://clonezilla.org/downloads/download.php?branch=stable

[GTechGeorge]

2 minutes ago, MEDU said:

Since there are applications installed on that drive you would want to change the drive letter to match the old drive. For an easy and fast file transfer, I would use Acronis Cloning software or even the free CloneZilla. Its very easy to do. Once the data is copied over, open Disk Management and change the drive letter of the old drive to another letter, then change the new drive letter to match what the old drive used to be, that way your Steam library and applications will function properly. Once you confirm that your data is there and functional then do what you want with your old drive.

For CloneZilla, it says I have to download it to a flash drive or CD as a boot disk. Is there no easy way to just install it temporarily to use it? It also says something about using Linux.

[MEDU]

Yea, sorry about that... Use this instead, Ive used software from this company many times over many years...

https://www.easeus.com/backup-utility/free-disk-cloning-software.html

[GTechGeorge]

8 minutes ago, MEDU said:

Yea, sorry about that... Use this instead, Ive used software from this company many times over many years...

https://www.easeus.com/backup-utility/free-disk-cloning-software.html

Let's hope this works

[MEDU]

yea man, it def should work... like i said earlier, once the cloning completes then change the drive letters before trying to load any games or Sony Vegas

Also, from the looks of it, having almost 2TB worth of data, thats transferring pretty quick... much faster than a copy/paste would do

[KenjiUmino]

54 minutes ago, StrikerX1360 said:

I've heard stories about certain programs being bound to a file directory on that hard drive and completely malfunctioning when transferred.

this can be true ... but ... 

 

44 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

I've only found cloning software to be necessary when copying an operating system from one drive to another. 

this is also true. 

 

i never needed 3rd party software to copy a data / program drive. only for the system drive. 

 

what i did was:

 

1. plug the new drive in (either via a USB adaptor or connecting directly to the mainboard)
2. create and format a partition
3. copy-paste EVERYTHING from the old drive to the new one in a way that the folder structure is identical (so D:/folder1/subfolder1 becomes E:/folder1/subfolder1)
4. remove the old drive from system
5. change the drive letter to what the old drive was (if old drive was D: then make new drive be D: now) 

this worked 99.99999% of the time without an issue.

no special software required. copying the crapton of files over took a while tho - make sure you have and take your time - do not rush it. 

[MEDU]

First change Drive D to a different letter, i suggest something down the line, like J or after, then change F to D, then try your games and apps before even thinking about wiping the old drive... dont wanna lose any data. That way you will have two copies of ur data

[MEDU]

1 minute ago, KenjiUmino said:

this can be true ... but ... 

 

this is also true. 

 

i never needed 3rd party software to copy a data / program drive. only for the system drive. 

 

what i did was:

 

1. plug the new drive in (either via a USB adaptor or connecting directly to the mainboard)
2. create and format a partition
3. copy-paste EVERYTHING from the old drive to the new one in a way that the folder structure is identical (so D:/folder1/subfolder1 becomes E:/folder1/subfolder1)
4. remove the old drive from system
5. change the drive letter to what the old drive was (if old drive was D: then make new drive be D: now) 

this worked 99.99999% of the time without an issue.

no special software required. copying the crapton of files over took a while tho - make sure you have and take your time - do not rush it. 

Yes, that would def work in this situation. The 3rd party software isn't really needed.

[KenjiUmino]

9 minutes ago, MEDU said:

Yes, that would def work in this situation. The 3rd party software isn't really needed.

always has worked for me. it just takes a lot of time. 3rd party software or hardware solutions might be faster but that's about the only real benefit here. 

 

make sure not to delete ANYTHING from the old drive - just unplug it from the system after copying to test if everything REALLY works off the new drive now. 

 

you can do what you want with the old drive after you double and tripple checked that all your files are where they belong and all your applications work as expected.

[GTechGeorge]

6 hours ago, MEDU said:

First change Drive D to a different letter, i suggest something down the line, like J or after, then change F to D, then try your games and apps before even thinking about wiping the old drive... dont wanna lose any data. That way you will have two copies of ur data

Okay, the cloning just completed and Drive F: (4TB) is now an exact replica of drive D: (2TB). So you say I should change original Drive D: to something down the line such as G, J, or M and then change F to D, correct? I just want to be 100% certain before committing to an adjustment like this.

[Egg-Roll]

3 hours ago, StrikerX1360 said:

Okay, the cloning just completed and Drive F: (4TB) is now an exact replica of drive D: (2TB). So you say I should change original Drive D: to something down the line such as G, J, or M and then change F to D, correct? I just want to be 100% certain before committing to an adjustment like this.

Correct D:>#: (any letter that's empty works as long it's not A or B, because I'm old and those are old drive slots for floppies) and F:>D:, It'll trick the programs in thinking nothing happened. For steam games it's not a big issue but not sure about others as each one is different. Some programs can work being moved around while others are sticklers.

[GTechGeorge]

Okay. Thank you very much for the help, everyone. Everything seems to be in working order and accounted for. I'll give updates if anything goes wrong.

[Bhav]

Btw if you have Asus ROG series boards, they come with Asus clone drive included for free and its super fast. 

 

I also got a free code for Acronis with my new Crucial MX300 drive, I might sell it though after checking its value. Oh nvm, its only £20 and the keys only sell for like £2, activating it now then.