How to Clone a Hard Drive (Including to an SSD)

Cloning copies an entire drive, including Windows, your apps, settings, and files, onto another drive so the new one boots and works exactly like the old one. It’s the standard way to upgrade to a faster SSD or a bigger disk without reinstalling everything. This guide covers how to clone a hard drive step by step, how to clone a hard drive to an SSD, and the one situation where normal cloning is the wrong move: when the source drive is failing.

Cloning vs imaging vs copying files

• Cloning copies a drive directly onto another drive. The result is ready to boot.
• Imaging copies a drive into a single image file you can restore later. Better for backups.
• Copying files gets your documents, but not a bootable system or installed programs.

If you only need your files, copying them is simpler. If you want the new drive to replace the old one with everything intact, clone it.

What you need

• A target drive with enough space. It must hold everything currently on the source drive. Most cloning tools can shrink partitions to fit a smaller target, as long as your used space fits comfortably, but an equal or larger drive avoids complications.
• A way to connect both drives at once. On a desktop, that’s usually a spare SATA port or M.2 slot. On a laptop with one drive bay, use a USB-to-SATA adapter (for 2.5” drives) or a USB NVMe enclosure (for M.2 NVMe SSDs). Not sure which kind of drive you have? See what is SATA.
• Cloning software (see below).
• A backup of anything important. Cloning is reliable, but picking the wrong source and target erases the wrong drive.

Choosing cloning software

Tools change frequently, so check current availability before you rely on an old tutorial.

• Your SSD maker’s tool. Several SSD manufacturers offer free migration software for their own drives, and some bundle editions based on Acronis. Check your drive maker’s support page first. These tools are usually the simplest option and often only work when the target drive is that brand.
• Clonezilla. Free and open source. It boots from a USB stick and clones or images whole disks. It’s text-menu based and less friendly, but powerful and well established.
• Commercial tools. Several paid backup suites include cloning. Note that Macrium Reflect’s free edition has been discontinued, so many older guides point to software that’s no longer offered.
• Macs: cloning a bootable macOS system has become complicated on recent Macs. For most people, Apple’s Migration Assistant with a Time Machine backup is the supported way to move to a new Mac or drive.

How to clone a hard drive, step by step

1. Check the source drive’s health first

Before anything else, look at the source drive’s SMART data with a tool like CrystalDiskInfo. If it shows Caution or Bad, rising reallocated or pending sectors, or the drive is clicking, freezing, or very slow, skip to the failing drive section below. A normal clone is the wrong tool.

2. Back up and tidy up

Back up your important files separately. Empty the Recycle Bin and remove anything you don’t need, which shortens the clone and helps if you’re moving to a smaller SSD.

3. Handle BitLocker

If the drive uses BitLocker (common on Windows 11 laptops, sometimes as “Device encryption”):

1. Make sure you have the recovery key saved somewhere off the drive. See how to find your BitLocker recovery key.
2. Suspend protection before cloning: open Control Panel → BitLocker Drive Encryption and choose Suspend protection, or run this in an administrator Command Prompt:

manage-bde -protectors -disable C:

Suspension can resume automatically after a restart, so do this right before you clone. If the cloned drive asks for a recovery key on first boot, enter the key you saved. Turn protection back on afterward if it doesn’t resume by itself.

4. Connect the target drive

Install it in the spare slot or connect it via USB adapter. If Windows prompts you to initialize it, that’s fine only for a new, empty drive.

5. Run the clone

In your cloning tool, select the source (old drive) and target (new drive). Triple-check this. Everything on the target will be overwritten, and picking them backwards destroys your data. Identify drives by model and size, not just disk number.

6. Swap the drives and boot

Shut down, install the new drive in the old drive’s place (or set it first in the boot order in your BIOS/UEFI settings), and boot. The partition style and boot mode carry over, so a UEFI/GPT system stays UEFI/GPT. If you’re unsure which you have, see MBR vs GPT. If you get a boot error, put the old drive back while you troubleshoot.

7. Verify, then keep the old drive

Check that Windows boots normally, your files open, the full capacity shows up (extend the partition in Disk Management if not), and your apps work. Keep the old drive untouched for a week or two until you’re confident nothing is missing. Only then reformat or reuse it.

Cloning a hard drive to an SSD

The process is the same, with a few extra points:

• Mind the capacity. Moving from a 1 TB hard drive to a 500 GB SSD only works if your used space fits, with room to spare.
• Laptop with one slot: clone over USB, then swap. A USB-to-SATA adapter works for a 2.5” SATA SSD; an NVMe SSD needs an NVMe enclosure.
• Check that the slot matches the drive. An M.2 slot may support SATA, NVMe, or both; check your laptop or motherboard manual.

Cloning a failing drive: stop and read this

This is where cloning guides usually fall short, and where people lose data.

Normal cloning tools are built for healthy drives. When they hit an unreadable sector, many retry it repeatedly, sometimes for a long time, before moving on. On a drive with weak heads or damaged media, those retries put the most stress on exactly the parts that are failing. A drive that could have given up nearly all its data can die partway through the clone.

If the source drive is showing failure warning signs:

• Don’t clone a clicking, grinding, or beeping drive. Those sounds usually mean a mechanical problem, and every power-on can cause more damage. Power it off and see hard drive clicking: what to do.
• Copy your most important files first, not the whole drive, if it’s still readable.
• Use an imaging tool designed for damaged drives. GNU ddrescue (free, for Linux) copies the easy areas first, skips bad spots, and keeps a map file so it can go back for the difficult areas later or resume if interrupted. A typical first pass:

ddrescue -f -n /dev/sdX /dev/sdY rescue.map

Here /dev/sdX is the failing source and /dev/sdY is the target, which will be overwritten. -n skips the slow scraping phase on the first pass. Getting the source and target backwards destroys your data, so confirm both with lsblk first. If you’re not comfortable on a Linux command line, this isn’t the time to learn.

• Know when to stop. If the drive disappears, starts making new noises, or the number of unreadable areas keeps climbing, stop. Continuing turns a recoverable drive into a much harder one.

The bottom line

To clone a hard drive, check its health, back up, suspend BitLocker, connect the new drive, clone with your SSD maker’s tool or a free option like Clonezilla, then swap, boot, and verify. Keep the old drive until you’re sure everything made it. The exception is a failing drive: standard cloning tools can finish it off, so use a bad-sector-aware tool like ddrescue, or stop before you make things worse.

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