AOMEI Partition Assistant
An Alternative Freeware to Hard Drive Duplicator
Hard drive duplicator may be your first choice when cloning hard drives, but if there was a more convenient way to clone disks, would you be willing to try it?
By Dervish / Updated on May 12, 2023
Looking for an alternative freeware for hard drive duplicator
I bought a new SSD and I want to transfer all the data on my computer to it, but my hard drive duplicator is broken. I tried to contact the after-sales to repair it. Unfortunately, it requires a lot of money. So, I am looking for a software to clone hard drives. Can anyone recommend me a free and reliable software to clone hard drives?
Why require a software to replace hard drive duplicator?
Many people like to use hard drive duplicator, because the clone speed of hard drive duplicator is fast. But it is expensive and easily broken. Most importantly, it is bulky and inconvenient to carry. Users can only use it in fixed places.
However, if you use computer software to clone disk, then these problems will be solved. What's more, this is a free disk cloning software.
Hard drive duplicator alternative
AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard (it is compatible with Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7, XP and Vista) is one of the best hard drive duplicator software on the market, not only without bundled software but also completely free. If you want to clone an entire hard drive to a new one, I believe it is a better choice than hard drive duplicator.
What's more, it has more advanced features, such as migrate only Windows system to new hard drives, resize partition size, merge partitions to a lager one.
Warning: For cloning data disk, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard supports MBR/GPT to MBR/GPT. If you plan to clone system disk, please upgrade to Professional Version.
What to do before cloning hard drives:
✎ You may need a SATA-USB converter to connect the hard drive to the PC.
✎ If the hard disk has not been used, please initialize the disk first.
Step 1. In the main interface of AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. Click “Clone Disk” in the right menu.
Step 2. Select a copying method as you require from "Clone Disk Quickly" and "Sector-by-Sector Clone". Here, we select “Clone Disk Quickly” as an example.
“Clone Disk Quickly” only copies the used sectors to the destination location, allowing the target disk smaller than the total size of the source disk.
“Sector-by-Sector Clone” will copy all sectors to the target disk, so the destination disk must be equal to or larger than the source disk.
Step 3. Select the disk you want to clone as the source disk and hit on “Next”.
Step 4. Then select the SSD drive as the destination disk and click “Next”.
Tip: You can tick "Optimize the performance of SSD" to improve the reading and writing speed of SSD if the selected destination disk is a SSD storage.
Step 5. In this window, this program allows you to adjust the partition size on the destination disk.
There are three options for you: “Clone without resizing partition”, “Fit partition to entire disk” and “Edit partition on this disk”. After finishing the adjustment, please click "Next". When you're cloning to smaller SSD, the first option is grayed out.
Step 6. You can preview the disk cloning operating by viewing the "Pending Operations". To commit the "Pending Operations", please click "Apply" and "Proceed".
How to boot computer from cloned disk
If you're using a laptop, you'll need to remove the old disk from the bottom, replace it with a new disk, and reboot to boot from the disk.
If you are using a desktop, you need to install a new disk in the hard drive slot of the host, and then change the disk to the first boot order in the BIOS.
Step 1. Reboot your PC and constantly press F2, Del, F8, or F12 to access the BIOS menu.
Step 2. You can use the arrow key to choose the Boot tab.
Step 3. Then move the cloned disk to the first position in the list.
Step 4. Save the changes and exit the BIOS setup utility. Then your PC will restart from the disk.
If you successfully boot desktop from the cloned disk, you can wipe the old HDD to free up disk space for saving data.
Did you see it? AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is the perfect replacement for hard drive duplicator. Not only does it meet your needs, but it can do other things that hard drive duplicator can't. If you haven't used it yet, please click the download link to try it.
