Clone A Laptop

I just bought an exact duplicate ACER laptop and I want to clone it so the both have the same software. I do not want to take them apart or buy a standalone hard drive. Is there a way to do it?

 

SATA to USB Cable
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FDTY29...A102DzuGGgL4A_hrkzxx4K31ylMQOvTzU-hNhbuPRgyd0

And of course the program called Acronis. Or this video can also explain things better

Good luck!

PS. Taking out the hard drive might not be avoidable for a true hard clone.

 

Personally I wouldn't advise it, as there must be a real risk the Microsoft activation servers will recognise the same Win 10 licence is being used on two systems and deactivate one if not both. If you want to go ahead anyway you could use any of several free imaging and cloning systems such as Aomei Backupper or Macrium Reflect. No need to pay for Acronis.

 

Thanks

 

Thanks

 

I prefer Macrium Reflect personally, it's the best. I haven't used Acronis in years, used to be free.

And earthlings is right on the money, most people forget about Micro$oft's policy on licensing.

 

I have used the same Windows 10 hard drive in two "different" PCs - they were both the same model of Dell desktop with a Vantec EZ-Swap-Ex, worked fine. While there would be a risk some software might deactivate, it should not matter for Win 10, it should reactivate with the key in the "BIOS", assuming these computer have a key in them, so they will not have the same key.

Clone PC to PC over the network - no drives or opening the cases.

I would make a backup of the target PC before trying.

 

If the computer being cloned was using a Microsoft account rather than a local account I believe it's likely the activation servers would recognise the duplicate but cloning should be OK otherwise.

 

That is why I don't use MS accounts...the computer is mine, not Microsoft's.