HDD to SSD Cloning Freeware Download [Windows PCs]
About clone HDD to SSD for upgrading
HDD (short for hard disk drive) and SSD (short for solid-state drive) are two commonly used disks. Both of them can save the system, and store the applications and personal files. However, SSD is much faster in speed and more reliable in durability. Thus, more and more computer users plan to replace HDD with SSD for better performance.
For the disk upgrade, most users choose to reinstall Windows operating system on the SSD, which will cost lots of time and energy to reinstall everything and tweak related settings. You may think of switching to the "System Backup & Restore" method. However, this process is still not easy, and you need to do the operations below:
1. Move data off any non-OS partitions from OS HDD and delete these partitions.
2. Shrink the OS partition to fit the new SSD.
3. Make an image of the OS partition to an external hard drive.
4. Install the new SSD.
5. Restore the OS image from the external hard drive.
6. Resize the OS partition to fill the SSD capacity.
7. Have Windows re-rate the OS drive, so it recognizes it as an SSD.
* If the capacity of SSD is large enough, you can skip 1 and 2.
To save your time and energy, an HDD to SSD cloning freeware is becoming necessary. What is the best HDD to SSD cloning software? When choosing the best free cloning software, you need to consider its price, features, difficulty of operation, and so on. Qiling Disk Master can meet your needs perfectly.
Top HDD to SSD cloning freeware: Clone disk without losing data
There is no built-in disk copy tool in Windows 11/10/8/7. If your SSD comes with data migration software, such as Intel Data Migration Software, Samsung Data Migration Software, etc., you can use it to copy HDD to SSD. However, if your SSD has no such data migration tool, you need to turn to third-party HDD to SSD cloning software.
Qiling Disk Master Standard is a great free HDD to SSD cloning software for Windows users, is my preference due to its highlights:
✦ Wide compatibility: It can work well on Windows 11/10/8/7 and Windows XP/Vista (32-bit and 64-bit).
✦ Flexible cloning ways: It allows you to clone all sectors whether used or not from HDD to SSD or clone used sectors only, being able to clone HDD with bad sector or copy larger HDD to smaller SSD respectively.
✦ Full-featured: Apart from cloning the entire HDD to SSD, it allows you to clone only partitions from HDD to SSD.
✦ User-friendly GUI: A modern and concise graphic user interface makes the cloning process easy to handle.
✦ Hot clone: It allows you to clone disk or partition while keep working. In other words, you don't have to reboot your computer to run the cloning process.
✎✎✎ Note: Qiling clone is free for disk and partition cloning. For cloning data disk, Qiling Disk Master Standard is enough. For copying the system disk, please upgrade to Professional Version.
Step-by-step: How to clone HDD to SSD easily and safely
Please refer to the following steps to learn how to clone HDD to SSD without reinstalling, and boot from SSD successfully.
- ★Tips:
- First of all, you need to install the SSD on your PC and ensure that it can be detected. For copying HDD to SSD on a laptop that has only one disk bay, an SSD-to-USB cable is necessary.
- Then download this HDD to SSD cloning freeware – Qiling Disk Master Standard and follow the steps given below (supposed that you are cloning Windows 10 HDD to a smaller SSD).
Step 1. Install and launch Qiling Disk Master, click "Tools" 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 "Proceed" button to start cloning the hard drive.
That's the simple steps to use Qiling Disk Master to clone HDD to SSD for upgrading. The tool can help you format or initialize the SSD before cloning, provide complete cloning steps, and help you optimize the performance of the SSD after cloning. Don't hesitate to download and experience this powerful free cloning tool!
Bonus Tip: How to Boot from SSD After Cloning
If you cloned the whole disk, including the OS, you need to change the boot order and boot from the SSD.
Step 1. Connect the cloned SSD to the computer properly and restart the PC.
Step 2. Press F2/F8/F11 or Del to enter the BIOS environment.
Step 3. In the BIOS setup, go to the "Boot" tab and set the boot items.
Final words
With this powerful HDD to SSD cloning freeware – Qiling Disk Master Standard, you can clone HDD to SSD just within a few clicks. What's more, you can also use it to clone HDD to HDD, SSD to SSD, SSD to HDD, etc. In addition to cloning disk, it is also able to merge partitions, move partitions, convert data disk to MBR or GPT without deleting partitions, and more.
If you are a Windows Server user, you can try Qiling Disk Master Server, which is compatible with both Windows PC and Server, and equipped with more advanced functions, such as allocating free space from one drive to another, migrating only OS to SSD, secure erase SSD, resetting Windows OS, and more.
Related Articles
- How to Initialize SSD on Windows 10/8/7?
Here, you can learn how to initialize SSD on Windows 10, 8, 7 computer. If you cannot initialized SSD drive as expected, this article also provides effective methods to help you out. - Cloned Hard Drive or SSD Won't Boot - How to Fix?
If you find the cloned hard drive/SSD won't boot after you clone your Windows 7/8/10/11 hard drive to another HDD or SSD, you can try the solutions listed in this post to make the cloned hard drive bootable successfully. - Free OS Migration Software: Migrate OS to SSD without Reinstallation
If you want to migrate OS to another hard drive, download the free OS migration software: Qiling Disk Master Standard, which allows you to migrate OS to a new SSD/HDD drive without reinstallation.