Cloning a Disk

Overview

It is possible to clone an entire hard drive or specific partitions on a hard drive. This is useful if you are upgrading to a larger hard drive. With Macrium Reflect you can boot the target disk on the same system after cloning. Cloning your hard drive creates a bootable new hard drive with the state of your computer at the time you undertook the clone. You can clone to a hard drive installed in your computer or to a hard drive installed in a USB Drive Caddy.

Deleting and re-configuring existing partitions or configuring new partitions is possible with Macrium Reflect, so you don't need to do this prior to cloning.

1. Select the disk to clone from in the main application window and click Clone this disk...
   

   

2. In the wizard that opens Click Select a disk to clone to...
   
   
   
   

3. Select the clone target disk. In this case, there is only one disk available.

4. If you do not want to modify the order or size of partitions of the clone, click Next. This is the default behavior.
   Alternatively, drag the partitions you want to clone, the red arrow below shows this. 

   

   Becomes

   

   In this example, there is 650MB of free space after the copied partition. You can modify the size of each partition to fit the new disk if required.

   You can delete partitions on the target disk by selecting and clicking 'Delete existing partitions'.

5. To extend the partition to make use of the remaining space on the destination, click Fill Space.

   You can open the more detailed Partition Properties dialogue by selecting a partition on the destination then clicking Layout. Using the Partition Properties dialogue you can:

   1.  Set the partition size precisely using the Partition Size entry box.
   2.  Resize the partition automatically by clicking Maximum size or Minimum size. You can set the partition back to the original size by clicking Revert.
      
      

   

6. Click OK.
   
   
7. If required, click Advanced Options to change settings for this clone:
   
   
   
   

   Option	Description
   Intelligent sector copy	Copy only file system sectors/clusters that are in use. This reduces the time to create the clone as unused file system clusters are not copied.
   Verify File System	Verifying the file system prior to cloning ensures that there are no file system errors transferred to the clone. Please note that this may take several minutes to complete
   Rapid Delta Clone	Copy only file system differences between the clone source and target. This increases cloning speed dramatically.  Show more information on RDC...
   Enable SSD TRIM	Enable SSD TRIM on the clone target to optimize the disk.  Show more information on SSD TRIM...
   Forensic Sector Copy	Copy every sector from the source to the target disk partition. Please note that this option is only necessary if you want to copy unused file system space and will significantly increase the time to complete the clone.
   Shutdown	Set power saving options after a clone task.
   Email Success	Set recipient, subject, body, and attachments should this clone succeed.
   Email Failure	Set recipient, subject, body, and attachments should this clone fail

8. Click Next.
   
   The options to Add Schedule, Edit Schedule, or Delete Schedule is displayed.
   
   
   Click Add Schedule to optionally schedule your clone
   
   
   
   Make any required changes and click Next. 
   For more information see Scheduling backups.
   
   
9. Review the settings and click Finish.
   
   

10. Verify the settings in Backup Save Options and if appropriate, click OK. 

    

    Note: Saving a backup definition enables you to run your Clone at any time with a single click
    Note: You must save your backup definition if you have created Clone schedules. Your schedules cannot run if this step is missed.

    If you want to run the Clone at this point, select Run this backup now and click OK.

11. A Warning box appears, if appropriate click Continue.

12. The clone operation now starts.

Creating a clone video