How to Clone a Laptop Hard Drive and Operating System

Updated by Linda on March 10, 2022 to Disk/Partition Clone | How-to Guides

What are the standard procedures for cloning a laptop?

Cloning a laptop can be a major undertaking if you don't know what you're doing. You'll need to clone the laptop's hard drive and replace it with the new one according to a few standard procedures.

Here are the key steps to clone any laptop:

• Connect your new SSD/HDD to the laptop you want to clone.
• Download and install a disk cloning software on your laptop. This is the most crucial step, as there are many disk cloning programs available. Don't worry – the next section of this article will help you choose the best one.
• Use the disk cloning software to set up the cloning process. This mainly involves selecting the source and target devices.
• Remove your current laptop's storage drive and replace it with the new one.
• After installing the new drive in your laptop, boot your laptop from it.

Follow these steps to clone your laptop. Don't worry if you're confused; the next two articles will explain each step in more detail.

How to Choose the Best Laptop Cloning Software

If you Google “laptop cloning software,” you'll be met with scores of results. As a new user, you might get confused, and strangely, you might end up picking the wrong laptop cloning software.

But, to help you choose, let's look at some of the key features that a good disk cloning software should have.

User-Friendly

Disk cloning software should be easy to use. A complicated user interface can be time-consuming and lead to a mess on your laptop.

2. Reliable and secure

Disk cloning software works by manipulating your critical data. As such, they need to be highly reliable and secure. Any unintended error in the software can cause massive damage to your data.

Compatibility

Some disk-cloning utilities support only a limited number of complex drive configurations, operating systems, or firmware settings. Make sure that the software you choose supports all versions of Windows and firmware settings.

4. Supports cloning of MBR and GPT disks

HDDs and SSDs use either the MBR (Master Boot Record) or GPT (GUID Partition Table) partition style. If your cloning software doesn't support both, your laptop cloning options will be limited.

* Related article: MBR vs GPT: What Are the Differences and Which Is Better?

5. Bootable OS Cloning

A disk cloning software should be able to clone your HDD or SSD, along with the installed operating system, correctly and thoroughly. The advantage of this is that it lets you transfer the entire OS in full to the target drive. This way, you can boot directly from it without having to reinstall the OS.

These standards are not absolute, but they still make for good measuring sticks. With them in mind, our article will introduce the Disk Copy tool as the most powerful disk cloning software out there.

How to Clone a Laptop Hard Drive to Another Hard Drive

In Part 1, you saw the basic steps for cloning a laptop. Here, we'll dive into the details of how to use a disk cloning tool to clone a laptop's hard drive to another one.

First, connect the new hard drive to your laptop.

The first step in cloning your laptop's hard drive is to connect the new one to your laptop. You can do this in several ways: 1. Using a hard drive caddy: If the new hard drive has a different size than the original, you might need a hard drive caddy to fit it into your laptop's bay. 2. External hard drive enclosure: Place the new hard drive in an external enclosure and then connect it to your laptop via a USB port. 3. SATA-to-USB adapter: Purchase a SATA-to-USB adapter to directly connect the new hard drive to your laptop's USB port. 4. If your laptop supports hot-swapping, you can also replace the internal hard drive directly, but make sure to power off and disconnect the laptop first. After connecting the hardware, use a cloning software tool such as Acronis True Image, Clonezilla, or Time Machine for Mac to copy the data from the old hard drive to the new one. Follow the software's instructions to ensure a smooth cloning process. Once completed, the new hard drive will contain all the data and settings of the old one. At this point, you can choose to set the new drive as the primary boot drive if desired.

• USB cable: You can use a special USB cable to connect the new drive to your laptop, where it will be recognized as a USB device.

• External hard drive enclosure: An external hard drive enclosure allows you to use your new hard drive with your laptop directly. You would simply install the new hard drive into the enclosure and then connect it directly to your laptop.

Next, download a disk-cloning tool and clone your old drive.

Step 1: Download, install, and run Disk Copy on your computer.

Click “Disk Mode,” then select the hard drive you want to copy or clone. Click “Next” to continue.

Step 2: Select the target disk.

Note: If you are copying or cloning a source disk, the target disk should be at least as large as the source disk, or even larger.

If prompted, click “OK” to confirm that you want to erase the data from the target disk.

Step 4: Check and edit the disk layout.

If the target disk is an SSD, remember to check the box next to “Target is SSD.”

Click “Proceed” to begin the cloning process.

Finally, remove the old hard drive and install the new one.

Remove the old hard drive from the laptop and boot from the cloned drive.

After connecting the new drive to your laptop and using a disk-cloning utility to copy the data from your existing drive to it, you'll need to remove the old drive and install the new one.

You'll need to shut down your laptop. Then, carefully unscrew the back panel of the laptop using a screwdriver. Next, locate the position where the current hard drive is installed, depending on your laptop's hardware setup. Remove the old hard drive and install the new one in its place.

Boot up your laptop; it should now start from the cloned drive.

After the clone is finished, install the new hard drive into your laptop, and replace the back cover. Now you can power up the laptop as normal – it should work just as it did before, with no need to install a new operating system, since Disk Copy did that for you.

In short

There are many reasons why you might need to clone your laptop. Common reasons include expanding storage space, replacing your laptop, or swapping out an old hard drive. The general process for cloning a laptop is the same, regardless of the reason.

However, the key choice in cloning a laptop is selecting the disk cloning software. You can choose the best one by looking at crucial factors such as user-friendliness, reliability, bootability with the operating system, compatibility, and support for both MBR and GPT.

Considering all these factors, the best disk cloning software is Disk Copy. It makes the entire process straightforward and is absolutely 100% safe and reliable.