How to restore your clone on a new hard drive You can now continue with steps seven to ten in the preceding section. A blue rectangle will appear when the disk is selected. In this case, I'm choosing my C: drive because it is the drive I'm swapping out. Launch Macrium Reflect from your Start menu, desktop or taskbar.It's also good practice to clean up any files on your system, especially if you're moving to a smaller drive - you can't have more data than the new drive can hold. See at Acronis (opens in new tab) How to clone your hard driveīefore you begin with Macrium Reflect, ensure the drive you're going to clone to is connected to your PC. For just the cloning and backup software, you'll spend about $40. Just don't expect a fancy user interface.Īcronis True Image: There are a few buying options to choose from when it comes to Acronis - there is also a 30-day free trial (opens in new tab) - including subscription options that come with 50GB or 1TB of cloud storage. It supports a ton of file systems and it plain works. Its UI is super simple to use, and you can even set an automatic file sync that will keep your backup up to date.Ĭlonezilla: This free, open-source cloning tool has been around for a long time, and with good reason. In a nutshell I use Reflect to do a full system backup to my second hard drive and then I use Microsoft's very own free tool SyncToy, SyncToy 2.1 is now available for download to backup and synchronise my personal files to my second hard drive) For free software that just does what it says on the tin these are a godsend for anyone on a limited budget.AOMEI Backupper: Like Macrium Reflect, there is a fully-functional, free version of AOMEI that lets you create system images, back up hard drives, and clone drives.

I use this free version of Reflect for just the basic needs I would ever need, it is very easy and straight forward to use but if you want many of the options Acronis has to offer (including file backup etc.) you can opt to purchase the Pro version for quite a good price. I have always had problems with the top seller 'Acronis True Image' as it has far too many options that I would never use and in my opinion is quite bloated and complex to use. I have been using the free version for quite some time now and it has never let me down once and I have restored my PC quite a few times with it. This is for all users that really want to be able to backup & restore their full system (you really should) using the amazing quality product, Macrium Reflect, free edition for personal use only.

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