What is partition?
To make it easy, a partition is a sector on a hard disk. A hard disk can be divided into several sectors, so a hard disk can has several partitions. However, a few special partitions can occupy space from more than one disk, usually two. In general, the local disk C, D and F you see in "My Computer" are actually all partitions not really hard disks.
Why do you need to copy partition?
"Copy Partition" is also called "Clone Partition" which could help you quick back up your important partition or migrate partition from one hard disk to another hard disk so as to prevent data loss from program error or some other accidental affairs. This function can be useful, either as a means of making a backup, or for distribution of an identical environment to multiple computers.
Once, one of my friends had suffered a lot from data loss. He used to save all his private matter on partition D, including photos, videos, music and things like that. One day, when he starts his PC, a message notices him that his D partition is running incorrectly. He worried about that something wrong has happened to his privacy on D partition. Then, he went to partition D to check, unfortunately, he could not open it. He tried all he can do, but all in vain. Finally, he could do nothing but take his computer to a repair shop. Costing some money, partition D could open and be used again, but the data on it were lost forever. He was very sad about that and regretted not having made a copy of his valuable data. Therefore, after the accident, he always has a backup of his data and makes it his habit.
Yes, it is extremely important to secure your data by copying the partition on which your data are by one time. To do this work, you can make use of AOMEI Partition Assistant, a kind of professional software which helps you to manage your partitions very well. Then, how to copy partition with partition assistant? Please follow the following article.
Before you do
Only the unallocated space could be selected as the destination place to contain the source partition. You could delete unused partitions or shrink other partitions to get an unallocated space if there is no unallocated space.
If there are other applications running on the partition which you are going to perform, AOMEI Partition Assistant will notice you to close those applications or to execute this operation under PreOS Mode.
To copy partition
Step 1. Launch Partition Assistant, on the main console, right-click the partition which you want to copy and select "Clone Partition" (here will copy the D partition).
Step 2. In the pop-up window, there are two different way to copy your partition:
Clone Partition Quickly - only copy the used space of the partition and supports resizing partition during the copy process (Recommend).
Sector by Sector Clone - copy the whole partition no mater it is used or not, this may need a considerably long time.
Select one of the methods you want and then click "Next". You can also confirm your operations in the pop-up window.
Step 3. In next window, select the destination location (unallocated space) to hold your source partition, and then click "Next".
Note: Here is an “Optimize the performance of SSD” option. If you want to copy a partition onto a SSD (Solid State Drive) disk, ticking this option will optimize the reading and writing speed on this partition. It can also extend the life of the SSD disk.
Step 4. As you can see from the following screenshot, you could readjust the size of source partition in order to fit the target partition based on your need, or directly skip the step and click "Finish".
Step 5. Back to main console, click "Apply" on the tool bar to commit partition copy.
Note:
If you select the "Clone Partition Quickly" method, the unallocated space could be smaller than the source partition but must be larger than the used space of the source partition. If you select the "Sector-by-Sector Clone" mode, the unallocated space must be equal or larger than source partition. Otherwise, the "Next" button will grey out in Step 3 and you cannot continue.
If you clone system partition, the operation need to be completed under the PreOS Mode.