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NoahRussell's avatar
NoahRussell
Iron Contributor
Jul 11, 2025

What is the easiest way to clone a hard disk drive in Windows?

The old drive is a small 256GB SSD as my main drive for a while, but it's finally running out of space. I just bought a new 2TB SSD with more capacity and want to clone my current drive to it so I do...
device management
DannyBeaven's avatar
DannyBeaven
Iron Contributor
Jul 11, 2025

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to clone a hard drive using Clonezilla, one of the best free and open-source tools for disk cloning and imaging.

What You Need

  1. A USB drive or CD/DVD to boot Clonezilla
  2. A source drive (the drive you want to clone)
  3. A target drive (the destination drive; must be equal or larger in size)
  4. Clonezilla ISO file and software to create a bootable USB (like Rufus)

 

How to clone a hard drive free from windows

1. Use Rufus or a similar tool to create a bootable USB drive with the Clonezilla ISO.

2. Insert the USB drive into your PC and boot from it (change boot order in BIOS/UEFI if needed).

3. On boot, choose Clonezilla live and press Enter.

4. Select your language and keyboard layout (usually press Enter to accept defaults).

5. Choose: Start Clonezilla → device-device (work directly from disk to disk) → Beginner mode → disk_to_local_disk.

6. Select source disk (the disk you want to clone).

7. Select target disk (where data will be copied to – be very careful, this will be overwritten).

8. Confirm all prompts. Clonezilla will ask for a final confirmation before proceeding.

9. Clonezilla will now clone the drive sector-by-sector.

10。 Once completed, you’ll get a summary screen and the option to reboot or shut down.

 

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