Windows 10 Bootable Clone: Step-by-Step Guide 2025

“Is it possible to make a bootable clone of my hard drive?”

“My Dell desktop has Windows 10 installed on a 1TB HDD. I’ve recently got myself a new solid-state drive (SSD). I would like to use the new SSD as my system disk so I can have faster boot speeds, but don’t want to manually reinstall Windows 10 on it. Can I make a clone of my Windows 10 system disk where the SSD is bootable? Does anybody know an easy way to perform Windows 10 bootable clone task?”

Pick up a bootable hard drive cloning software for Windows 10

A bootable clone of your Windows 10 system ensures seamless recovery from hardware failures, ransomware attacks, or SSD upgrades.

If you want to create a new bootable hard drive by cloning your old drive, then you will need specialist cloning software. There are many different programs on the internet, you should make sure you pick reputable software by following the below standards:

☞ Safe and reliable: The cloning software shouldn’t cause damage to your disk and must let you boot your computer from the cloned SSD/HDD after cloning.
☞ Easy-to-use: The cloning software should be easy to use for all levels of computer users.
☞ Compatible:The cloning software should be compatible with multiple different versions of Windows operating systems otherwise it will be useless if you upgrade/downgrade your system.

With those in mind, AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional is the perfect option for users cloning boot drive. It fulfills all of the above criteria. Besides, it has more high-lights:

Bootable Clones: Ensures cloned drives retain UEFI/BIOS boot partitions for immediate system recovery.

SSD Optimization: Automatically aligns partitions for 4K performance and extends SSD lifespan.

Flexible Migration: It allows to clone larger HDDs to smaller SSDs with intelligent partition resizing.

Cross-Platform Support: Works with Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7, including GPT/MBR disks.

how to clone a boot drive Windows 10

Before using AOMEI Partition Assistant to clone Windows 10 boot drive, you need some preparations.

1. A destination drive (SSD/HDD) with equal or larger capacity than the used space on your source drive, and initialize disk at first (GPT is recommended for drives over 2TB or UEFI systems).
2. A USB adapter or SATA cable for external drives.
3. AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional (here you can download its demo version to have a try).

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Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7

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Clone Windows 10 boot drive [entire system disk]

Here you can follow the step-by-step guide to clone Windows 10 boot drive.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant, click "Clone" in the main interface and select "Clone Disk".

Step 2. Choose the hard disk that you need to clone as the source disk and click "Next".

Step 3. Select the destination disk to store the data on the source disk, and then click "Next".

Step 4. Then, you can check the source and destination disk in the next window or change to “Sector to Sector clone”, and click the "Confirm" button to continue if there is no problem.

Here, you can also click the "Settings" button to adjust the partition size on the destination disk or tick "4k alignment" to improve the reading and writing speed of SSD if the target disk is an SSD drive.

Step 5. At last, click "Apply" and "Proceed" in the main interface to start cloning the hard drive.

Clone only operating system in Windows 10

AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional also allows you to clone only OS and boot from it.

Step 1. Run AOMEI Partition Assistant. Choose "Clone" > “Migrate OS” and click “Next”.

Step 2. Choose the unallocated space on the destination disk and click “Next”.

Step 3. Here you can resize the partition that is being created. Then, click “Next”.

Step 4. Click “Apply” and “Proceed” to start the conversion process.

★Tips:

A reboot is required to clone a Windows 10 hard drive or clone an OS drive to an SSD or HDD.

Remember to change the boot mode to successfully boot the drive after you clone MBR to GPT or GPT to MBR.

How to boot from the cloned drive after Windows 10 bootable clone

AOMEI Partition Assistant clone ensures you to boot from the cloned drive. After cloning, you can follow the steps below to get a successful boot.

1. Restart the PC and enter BIOS/UEFI (press F2/Del during startup).
2. Navigate to Boot Options > Set the cloned drive as the first boot device.
3. Save changes and exit.

If the clone fails to boot, you should ensure BIOS settings match the disk format: UEFI for GPT, Legacy for MBR.

Let’s wrap things up

Get AOMEI Partition Assistant, a reliable and powerful disk cloning solution for completing Windows 10 bootable clone. AOMEI Partition Assistant is useful for a whole range of functions including if you need to copy certain partitions on your disk to a new one or if you need to manage your partitions.