This article shows you how the Windows Server 2012 clone disk with the one of the best Server cloning software – AOMEI Partition Assistant Server.
By Cherry / Last Updated October 14, 2019
In Windows Server 2012, cloning disk can help a lot:
> Upgrade/replace hard drive: For many reasons, you may want to upgrade your disk to a larger or new one. When you bought a new SSD or HDD, you can clone old hard drive to the new hard drive instead of re-installing OS and other applications to that new hard drive.
> Reactive and restore: Disk clone can be used in system restore. Clean up all data on the original hard drive, and then restore the original data to the hard drive. This operation will recover the functions on the computer and root out the existing virus on computer. It is usually used by internet bar, school, or some other organizations to make sure that if users changed the system settings, and brought virus to the computer, you can quickly restore system to “clean” state by re-activation.
> Prepare for new computer’s installation: you can clone disk with some disk cloning software and install a standard set software to computer so that new users can applying it instantly without waiting installation.
Considering with many aspects, you may want to clone disk in Windows Server 2012.
Since Windows Server 2012 has no built-in tool for cloning disk to disk, it is rather necessary to find a professional and reliable copy tool. And AOMEI Partition Assistant Server definitely will be my preference out of its highlights listed below:
Bootable clone: It can clone all partitions (hidden partitions related with boot are included)on the source disk, make you can boot from the target disk in a success after clone.
High compatibility: This server cloning software supports you clone hard disk drive, solid state drive, SSDHD, SD card and etc. And can work with Windows Server 2019/2016/2012 (R2)/2008(R2)/2003.
Operability: It is with concise and user-friendly interface, which allows you to clone disk in Windows Server.
Full featured: It also supports you to clone only specific partition or clone OS related partitions. And it supports aligning SSD partitions optimizing its performance.
As mentioned above, the Server cloning software AOMEI Partition Assistant Server can make things easier. Here you can follow the next contents to learn how to use it for Windows Server 2012 clone disk.
Before you do, here are some things you need to prepare:
1. A new hard drive for storing data. You need to prepare an HDD or an SSD to clone Windows Server 2012 disk to. Connect it to your Server computer and make sure it can be detected.
2. Confirm what partition type your hard drive is, and make sure your Windows OS is 32Bit or 64Bit. Windows Server 2012 (R2) 32Bit can only boot from MBR disk. If you are planning to clone MBR to GPT disk, it may be unable to boot after being cloned to destination disk. For this situation, you need to upgrade your system to 64 Bit or convert GPT to MBR in Server 2012. However, you can directly clone MBR disk to GPT with Windows Server 2012 (R2) as only as the motherboard supports EFI/UEFI. Otherwise, your system will be unable to boot next time.
3. If you want to clone a GPT hard drive to an MBR disk, the AOMEI Partition Assistant would change the fourth primary partition and later partitions into logical partition while cloning if there are more than 4 primary partitions on the GPT disk.
4. Install this Server cloning software to your Windows Server 2012.
After those preparations, you can start to clone disk in Windows Server 2012.
Step 1. Run AOMEI Partition Assistant Server, right click the source hard drive and click “Copy Disk”.
Step 2. It will pop up a second window which provides you two cloning method, Copy Disk Quickly and Sector-by-Sector Copy. Here we choose Copy Disk Quickly.
The differences between the two methods:
| Clone method | Clone Disk Quickly | Sector-by-Sector Clone |
| Clone scope | Clone only used space | Clone every sector |
| Capacity Requirement about Target Disk | Should not be smaller than the used space of source disk | Shall not be smaller than the capacity of source disk |
| Time spent | Less | More |
| Suitable conditions | Clone disk with bad sector | Clone disk with bad sector; clone BitLocker encrypted disk |
Step 3. Here you need to select the target disk, here is disk 2. if the disk is an SSD, you should check the box before “Optimize the performance of SSD”.
Step 4. AOMEI Partition Assistant Server also allows you to resize partition size on the destination disk (Sector-by-Sector Copy can’t do this job).
Step 5. Here is a note for how to boot from the cloned hard drive. Read it and click Finish.
Step 6. Here you will back to the main interface, click Apply to launch the whole process.
You can make disk clone in Windows Server 2012 effortlessly with AOMEI Partition Assistant Server seems much easier. Besides cloning, it has many other functions that can help you manage your hard drive(s) in Windows Server better, such as resize partition, delete partition, merge partitions and wipe hard drive etc.
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