Best Free Windows 10 Clone Software to Migrate OS and Data
📕 Quick Navigation:
- Why should we clone Windows 10?
- Is there free disk cloning software for Windows 10?
- How to migrate Windows 10 to SSD step by step
- Advanced way to clone entire disk with Windows 10 installed
Why should we clone Windows 10?
Released on July 29, 2015, Windows 10 has improved many features, so more and more users upgrade their system to Windows 10. However, the danger of data loss still exists. To keep the data safe, cloning Windows 10 after installing it is necessary. Literally, cloning Windows 10 means making an exact copy for it.
Windows 10 clone can solve a lot of problems. For example, if you don’t satisfy with the HDD of your computer and you want to change it to a solid state drive for better performance, you can clone hard drive in Windows 10 to SSD.
Or if you want to upgrade the hard drive to a larger new one, cloning Windows 10 and all the applications to the larger new hard drive is a good way.
Is there free disk cloning software for Windows 10?
If you are looking for the best free cloning software for Windows 10, Qiling Disk Master Standard deserves a try.
- It allows you to create a system image and then restore it to another drive without boot errors.
- You can also create a disk image and restore it to a new hard drive. Thus, everything on the old hard drive will be transferred to the new drive, including Windows OS, installed applications and user profiles.
- For daily data backup, you can make use of the File Backup and Cloud Backup features.
- It supports all the Windows PC OS including Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10/11 (both 32 bit and 64 bit).
All the operations are quite simple. Download it now to have a try!
How to migrate Windows 10 to SSD step by step
Let's say you have backed up Windows 10 to a USB drive. Follow the steps below to move Windows 10 to SSD:
Step 1. Connect the target SSD and the USB drive with the created system image to your computer. Run this free OS migration software for Windows 10 and click Restore > Select Task.
Step 2. Select the system backup task and click Next.
Step 3. Select Restore this system backup and check Restore system to other location. Then click Next.
Step 4. Select the SSD as the destination path and click Next.
Step 5. On the Operation Summary window, check the box before SSD Alignment and click Proceed to transfer Windows 10 to the new SSD.
Advanced way to clone entire disk with Windows 10 installed
If you upgrade to higher editions like Qiling Disk Master Professional, you can make use of the Disk Clone feature to transfer OS and data. Before cloning Windows 10, you need to prepare a storage hard drive which is large enough to store the data of the old hard drive. It could be a local disk, external hard drive, or USB flash drive.
Here is the step-by-step guide for how to clone HDD to SSD with the best cloning software for Windows 10 - Qiling Disk Master.
Step 1. Launch Qiling Disk Master. You will see the main interface of it. Click Clone and select the clone type: Disk Clone.
Note: If you want to clone only Windows 10 instead of the whole system disk, choose the System Clone feature.
Step 2. Select the original hard drive as the source disk and click Next.
Step 3. Select the destination disk and click Next. Here you can select a different local disk or an external hard drive you plugged in before.
Note: It is suggested to choose a blank disk. If there is important data on the target hard drive, you should backup data first because it will be overwritten after cloning.
Step 4. You can confirm the clone information here and set more for your cloning. To clone Windows 10 from HDD to SSD, SSD Alignment is recommended because it will accelerate the reading and writing speed of the SSD. After all the settings, click Proceed to launch the process.
>> Edit Partitions: it allows you to adjust partition size on the destination disk.
>> Sector By Sector Clone: it will clone all the sectors on the source disk, even if the sector is blank or it is a logically bad sector. Thus, if you check this box, it will take more storage space and longer time.
Step 5. After the process reaches 100%, click Finish to exit.
As you see, Qiling Disk Master is the best free Windows 10 clone software. It offers you two ways to migrate OS to a new hard drive: System Backup & Restore and Disk Clone. The clone method is recommended for the easy steps. Various disk types are supported by Qiling Disk Master. You can use it to clone NVMe to NVMe, clone SATA disk to SSD, etc. Why not give it a shot?
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