How to Clone Failed Hard Drive to External Hard Drive in Windows 10/8/7

As we know, hard drives are usually used to store and save data on laptops and desktops. Also, in most cases, the Windows system needs to be installed on the disk to enable Windows boot. If you encounter the issue of cloning a failed hard drive in Windows 10, keep reading to find the solution.

Why Clone a Failed Hard Drive?

After 3 or 4 years of use, a hard drive may accumulate damaged system files, bad sectors, and useless junk files that can cause all sorts of issues, with “hard drive failure” being one of the worst.

A failing hard drive is typically unstable, meaning it can't save or transfer data to your Windows PC reliably. It may even repeatedly freeze and restart. Worse, it could stop working altogether or fail to boot. If the failing hard drive is your system disk, you might not be able to start your computer at all.

Thus, to prevent severe data loss or even computer boot issues, it is highly recommended to clone a failing hard drive when you have one on your computer.

To clone a failed hard drive to an external hard drive, you will need the following items: 1. Failed hard drive: This is the problematic hard disk from which you want to copy the data. 2. External hard drive: This will be your target storage device to save all the information from the failed hard drive. Make sure it has a capacity equal to or greater than the failed drive. 3. Hard drive cloning tools: - Cloning software: Examples include Acronis True Image, Clonezilla, or Disk Utility for Mac. These provide an easy way to copy the entire contents of a hard drive. - Hardware cloning tool (optional): Devices like StarTech or Sabrent docking stations or HDD/SSD cloners can physically connect both drives and clone them directly without involving a computer. 4. Cables and adapters (if needed): - SATA to USB adapter: These are useful for connecting the hard drive to a computer's USB port. - eSATA cable: If your external hard drive and/or computer have eSATA ports, you might require this high-speed data cable. 5. Computer (if using software cloning method): - You'll need a computer running the cloning software to perform the cloning process. Here are the general steps: 1. Connect the failed hard drive to your computer using a SATA to USB converter or a hard drive dock. 2. Attach the external hard drive to another USB port on your computer. 3. Install and open the cloning software. 4. Follow the software's instructions to select the source drive (failed hard drive) and the target drive (external hard drive). 5. Initiate the cloning process. This may take some time depending on the size of the hard drive and the amount of data. 6. Once cloning is complete, safely disconnect both drives and test the external hard drive to ensure that the data has been successfully copied. Be cautious not to interrupt power or forcefully close the software during the cloning process to avoid damaging the data. If the hard drive has significant physical damage, professional data recovery services might be required.

Now, you may wonder how to clone a failed hard drive to a new one or an external hard drive and what preparations you need to make, right?

Here are some preparations you might need to make before cloning a failed hard drive:

• An empty external hard drive/HDD (with a capacity greater than the failed one).
• A powerful disk cloning software to copy and clone data from the failed hard drive to the external HDD.
• Works on all Windows OS - Windows 10/8.1/7/XP/Vista, etc.

To protect the data on the failed hard drive, we highly recommend that you seek help from reliable and 100% secure disk cloning software. Here, we suggest you give Tool Disk Copy a try, which allows you to skip all existing bad sectors and clone the entire hard drive or specific partitions to a new disk.

How to Clone a Failing Hard Drive to an External Hard Drive in Windows 10/8/7

A detailed step-by-step guide is available for you to use.

Note: If the failed drive is not a system disk, you can install the cloning software on the computer. If the failed drive is a system disk and you are unable to boot Windows from it, you will need to install the disk-cloning tool on a new, healthy computer running the same version of Windows as the failed drive, and then create a bootable disk.

You can click the button below to get this powerful tool and instantly clone all data from the failed hard drive to an external drive or new disk in just a few steps:

Please connect any external devices to your computer in advance.

Step 1: Choose "Disk Mode", select a source disk, and then click "Next".

Step 2: Select the external hard drive as the target disk.

Step 3: Edit the disk layout if needed, and click “Continue” to proceed.

Step 4: A warning message will appear, informing you that all data on the target disk will be erased. If you don't have any important data on the target disk, click “Erase” to continue.

Step 5: Wait for the process to complete.

This will successfully clone and move all saved data from the failing hard drive to the new external one. You can now view and use the cloned data on the new disk.

How to Fix a Failing Hard Drive in Windows 10/8/7

First, verify if the hard drive is actually damaged or malfunctioning. Check the data cable and power source for any issues. Next, connect the hard drive to another computer to see if it's recognized. If it is, run the CHKDSK utility to fix the drive.

< strong >Step 1. Next to the Windows Start menu, in the “Search Windows” box, type cmd.

Step 2. In the search results, right-click on "Command Prompt" and select "Run as administrator."

Step 3. Type the command: chkdsk E: /f /r /x. Replace E with the letter of your drive.

If running CHKDSK is too difficult, don't worry; you can run the CleanGenius utility instead.

If you're not comfortable with the command line, you can use CleanGenius, a graphical alternative that can help you fix file system errors on your hard drive with a single button.

Step 1: Download CleanGenius for free on your computer.

Step 2: Run the software. Click on “Optimize” on the left, and then choose “File Display”.

Step 3: Go to "Select Drive", and then choose the drive with file system errors. Check the option "Check and fix file system errors" and hit "Perform".

Step 4: Wait for CleanGenius to finish the repair process. When it's done, click Here to view the results.

Conclusions

Hard drive failure is a common issue for most users. You can clone a failing hard drive in Windows 10 to protect your data. After the cloning process, connect the external hard drive to your computer. Disk copy tools play an important role in backing up the failed hard drive or cloning an external hard drive to another external hard drive. You can try this software anytime to protect your data.