Best free cloning HD software?

What would be the best hassle free cloning hard drive software?

I want to clone a small older hard drive to a bigger hard drive.
Using windows 7

 

Easeus is the one I have used most often. It seems very stable and I have had very little problem with it.


http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/easeus_todo_backup_free_edition.html


Here is an Easeus product I have not used, which may be closer to what you want?

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/easeus_disk_copy.html

 

Thank you

I downloaded the one from the 2nd link, i assume the first lets me customize it in more advanced settings.

The one in the 2nd link was very simplistic, just what i was looking for. Cloned an hd and it seems to be working and booting fine and reading the files i currently tested.

Would this be a good software for monthly back ups? Or would someone advise to use something else?

 

The first one (EaseUS Todo Backup) will allow you to schedule backups and unlike Disk Copy, you can back up individual files and folders and do incremental or differential backups.

 

So i ran across a problem..

This software worked fine for cloning my laptop hard drive however it doesn't want to do it on my desktop hard drives.

Formatted a hard drive which is the exactly the same size as the one that is going to be cloned. I used the software and put make bootable file on the hardrive ( where the files will be cloned to).

When i restart my system and pick to boot the 2nd hard drive with nearly nothing in it (besides the bootable file) it doesn't proceed. It just gets stuck forever in a black screen with a white dash blinking in the upper left corner.

When i did this in my laptop i got a blue screen with menu options almost immediately , i followed the same steps as well..

The 2nd hard drive shows up in the bios as well as my main operating system so i am not sure what the problem is

 

Nexus...

Not sure what the problem is, but I have the same problem here on my main drive partition. If I let the PC boot through after BIOS, it will stop with the blinking cursor, so I have to hit f8 during the initial boot phase. That brings up a menu for choosing what drive to boot to for some reason. I just select the C drive and it boots fine. It doesn't start the boot over from BIOS. It just starts Windows.

I don't know if this might help you, since the drive is not your main drive. I just thought I would mention it. Maybe during the restart to boot to the 2nd drive, if you try tapping f8, you will be able to boot to that 2nd drive.

I would really like to see a resolution to this that is an improvement over using f8 on every boot, so I can repair whatever is wrong with the boot on this PC. However, I don't boot much. I leave the PC in standby almost all the time.

 

You need to go into BIOS and change the boot order. You could make the optical drive first, and the hard drive containing your OS 2nd, or simply put the hard drive first and use F8 if you want to boot from a CD/DVD.

 

I may be misunderstanding what you have done here but if you have cloned the original drive and have both the original drive and the clone connected then it will not boot. It can also damage the original. If this is the case then remove the clone and check whether the original boots and runs normally.

If this isn't what you have done can you explain exactly what you mean by 'with nearly nothing in it (besides the bootable file)'. What bootable file?

 

Earthling-

I dont even have a cloned drive yet, this is what i was trying to do but it wouldnt let me.

By bootable file i meant the one that Easeus creates on the hard drive that will be the ''receiver''. After cloning is succesful it seems to delete said file from hard drive or at least that's what it did when i did it on my laptop.

So i wasn't even able to launch Easeus from within the bios all the computer would do is go straight into a black screen with a underscore blinking white line ( it would stay like this forever).

Even after i disabled all drives except for the one that had the bootable Easeus file program it would still do the same thing.

I didn't feel like making a bootable cd so i was just putting the bootable file on the hard drive.

Since this wasn't working i just made a bootable cd and tried again. To my dismay it would once again do the same thing over even though i was now using a bootable cd.

So what i did was unplug my 2nd hard drive which was going to be the ''back up'' one, restarted my computer and then Easeus started from the bootable cd. At that point i plugged in the 2nd hard drive and it appears to be cloning as i am writing this message now.

 

I've found Macrium to be good so far, and it will clone GPT/UEFI installs should the need arise.

 

By 'plugged in the 2nd hard drive' do you mean to a USB port or to a SATA or IDE port on the motherboard? If you mean either SATA or IDE then DO NOT attempt to reboot with both that and the first hard drive still connected. If you mean USB then everything should be OK.

If the purpose of this exercise is to have a backup of your hard drive then cloning is not the way to go about it. If you use the first Easeus link rather than the second you will then be able to create condensed images of your drive or any partition and store those image files externally on a USB or network drive. Restoring an image just involves booting from CD and writing the image back to the disk or partition it came from and it's practical to do this regularly, like monthly.

 

Just to add, if you create images then they can be stored on any drive or partition other than the one they are an image of. It doesn't have to be USB or network. For backup I highly recommend imaging to you rather than cloning. Cloning is the tool to use for migrating a system to a new, usually larger drive.

 

I agree with Earthling about imaging monthly or even more often. I image both of my system drives after doing Windows Updates on Patch Tuesday. I also image if I've done several software updates at one time. The 45 minutes to one hour it takes saves a lot of headaches.

 

I always move Docs, Pics, Music etc to either another internal drive or to a data partition of the system drive. A system image then takes just 10-15 min and the data files are backed up separately daily using software that keeps the files in a readily accessible form rather than in a compressed image.

 

I made a partition for the movies I store on my desktop and laptop. Now when I do my monthly images of the four computers, it takes less than 1/2 hour per computer (except for one notebook that needs more RAM) and sure is worth the peace of mind if any of the computers acts up.

I have four external hard drives so I rotate where I store the images. That way, if an external drive goes down, I have 3 other places with different images stored.

 

I am having problem with easeus cloning software on a seperate computer on windows 8

(asrock q1900m motherboard)

When i try to boot the software via usb it locks out everything connected via usb my keyboard and mouse stop working when the software (easeus) launches
so i cannot proceed to clone

 

Cloning W8 can be problematic if you don't have the right software. Between UEFI/GPT and SecureBoot most cloning software we've been using for years won't work.

Macrium is so far so good, and EZ Gig IV has done the job as well. You need a DriveWire tool for the latter but it's based on Acronis.

 

I tried EaseUS and didn't like it. I'm not crazy about Macrium either. I use AOMEI Backupper on XP, Vista and 8.1 and haven't had any problems. I also like the fact that it has the best compression algorithm for creating images. Using VSS, you can clone or image your system drive even while files are in use. You can also create a WinPE boot disk like you did for EaseUS.

 

Ill try the other suggestions but right now i am liking AOMEI Backupper interface

However i can't seem to get it to work

I want to clone my hard drive to a SSD , and it keeps missing a partition in windows 8.

So when i try to boot from the ssd to test it , i get a light blue screen error saying i need to reinserted my reinstall disk.

I also checked the box that i would transfer to a SSD but it didn't make a difference

 

That's a System Clone and if you look at the choices screen, you'll see that feature is locked out in Backupper Standard (freeware). You'd need to upgrade to a paid version for that feature (clone HDD to SSD) to work.

 

I'm no fan of cloning. It's not unknown for novices to get confused as to which drive is which and clone an empty drive to a full one. Far preferable, as I explained in #11, to write an image file to a plugin drive and then restore the image to the target, in your case the SSD. Aomei Backupper or any of the popular imaging programs can do this.

 

Windows 8 seems like more trouble than what is worth

I opted to clone as opposed to back up an image and restoring because to me it seemed less time consuming.

Even when i backed up an image and restored it to the SSD i still get the error same as when cloning. I get a blue screen saying to insert a cd or recovery media to restore my OS.

It keeps missing a partition regardless if i choose to clone or back up and restore image.

Also the system clone option didn't need a full paid version, i was able to unlock it by posting their software via social media and providing a link to said post.

The system clone option also didn't work for me

I kind of wanted to use my ssd instead of my regular HD for the speed.I could have just simply freshly installed the operating system on the ssd and save(d) alot of time but that's not really the point considering i want to be doing this every now and then.


Mdonah - You said you used this software with windows 8 with no issues, could you please tell me how to got this to work because i am lost at this point. I thought my main issue was the mbr not being gpt but even after converting the ssd to gpt it still have same issues.

 

@DavidGP- The guide at your bottom link is an excellent easy to do and well laid out guide. I saved a copy for future quick info. Thanks

 

I don't have an SSD. I don't have multiple partitions on my system drives like system, recovery, etc. My drives are all MBR not GPT. I run Windows 8.1 (not 8) from a USB connected drive I created with AOMEI Partition Assistant's Windows to Go Creator feature which does require either the Win 8.1 ISO or DVD because it uses the install WIM or install ESD (from which it extracts the WIM) from the source folder.

I do disk images using high compression, smart sector copy and VSS. My Vista drive is my "C" drive in my laptop and my XP drive is in a modular/media bay caddy. When I tried to do a one click system backup with both the Vista and XP drives connected, it appeared to back up both drives at once (at least the image file size indicated it had).

I have used the WinPE bootable CD I created to restore XP and/or Vista from their images but, TBH, I haven't, yet, had to try to restore Win 8.1 because I've only had it installed for about 2 months and haven't done anything to mess it up. Because Win 8.1 is on a USB connected drive rather than on an internal drive like XP and Vista are I don't honestly know if it would boot from the restored image.

I didn't know you could unlock the HDD to SSD feature by posting a link in social media. I don't use any.

 

Every other hd cloning etc. software i try either fails for windows 8.1, or just makes things worse.

I tried acronis for windows 8.1 , i picked the clone option and put to clone the files to my ssd. I was prompted a message that my system needed to reboot in order for the clone to be successful

Well i restart the system and i get a missing bootmgr message, then i restart it once again and it says to insert appropriate media.

So now windows 8.1 on this system i have been wanting to clone doesn't load up at all. I think i won't bother cloning 8.1 at least for now...

I wanted something as easy as easeus cloning which is VERY easy to use. Actually most of the problems i am having are probably because of windows 8.1

Edit- i am beginning to think most of the issues i am having are not really due to software but probably my motherboards security features which i keep disabling but for some reason it likes to switch back and forth

So right now my operating system seems corrupt or non working, i hope i can figure out to to fix it otherwise after trying to use acronis otherwise i will have to reinstall everything again which thankfully since i kind of barely installed it about a couple of days ago i don't have too many important things on this machine.

 

I managed to successfully clone windows 8.1 to my SSD finally ( using davids recommend software for my WD drive) !
While some was software related a lot of the issues i was having was due to my motherboards security locks

I am impressed how much better my ssd is on windows 8.1 compared to windows 7 , probably twice as fast

When i boot into windows with my ssd drive i noticed that it looks wavy for the first 5 seconds then it fixes. I restarted the pc 3 times to see if it was a first time thing but it still does it with my SSD , kind of looks as if my lcd display is going to melt

 

I'm glad you were able to sort the cloning issue out.

Initially, when I installed Win 8.1, the graphics driver Win 8.1 installed didn't set the correct screen resolution. I think it was after 2 restarts that the resolution finally corrected itself. I have the nVidia driver that came with the laptop but it's for XP and didn't recognize Win 8.1 as being "Windows" and wouldn't install.

Perhaps if you can find a graphics driver compatible with Win 8/8.1, that "screen melt" will be corrected.